I've had a few inquiries, mostly to see if I'm still alive. Which fortunately for me I am. The alternative is not very exciting as far as I've been able to determine.
I'm shutting down the blog for the month of December. Next year should be action packed, but this next month? Not so much. I've never taken any long breaks, but now I am.
I hope everyone has a great Christmas, or whatever holiday you choose to observe. There are lots of them, and they're all nice. All paths lead to the light, as they say. Most religious differences being cultural.
Mod: They just weren't digging on Benedict Donald at the Palmetto Bowl.
Trump met with loud boos as he pulls up to South Carolina football game (Raw Storylink): Donald Trump made a big deal of attending the South Carolina "Palmetto Bowl," where he hoped to show up his GOP rival Nikki Haley at her alma mater, but a video shows the crowd wasn't quite as excited.
Trump teased the appearance on Truth Social, saying hours earlier that he was "getting ready to leave for the Great State of South Carolina, to attend the Palmetto Bowl."
"Will be a terrific game. See you all later!" he wrote.
His appearance itself was a bit of a mixed bag, according to video provided by Fox Carolina Sports Director Beth Hoole. "Former President Donald Trump has arrived ahead of kickoff at Williams-Brice Stadium," she wrote in posting the video.
But social media users including popular conservatives were quick to point out the boos. "Trump was met with a massive amount of boos as his SUV arrived at the Palmetto Bowl in Columbia South Carolina," according to Republicans Against Trump.
A reporter posted, "You can hear the boo's and explicit welcome Trump received as his SUV arrived at Williams-Brice for the Palmetto Bowl."
Mod: In case you've ever wondered why Trumpisn't locked up in jail yet.
'Never seen a number like this': GOP pollster says Trump is uniquely poised to lose (Raw Storylink): President Joe Biden's low approval ratings would normally set off major alarm bells for an incumbent president heading into an election year. However, The Atlantic's Ronald Brownstein reports those low approval numbers may not matter so long as Biden's rival is former President Donald Trump.
In fact, veteran Republican pollster Bill McInturff tells Brownstein that he's seen an unprecedented number of voters say their views of Trump would be their most important consideration when they think about a hypothetical Trump-Biden rematch.
“I have never seen a number like this NBC result between an incumbent and ‘challenger,’” McInturff explained. “If 2024 is a Biden versus Trump campaign, we are in uncharted waters.”
Although most polls currently show Biden trailing Trump in a 2024 matchup, Brownstein argues that Trump's polarizing rhetoric, such as his recent comparisons of his domestic opponents to "vermin," may remind swing voters unhappy with Biden of why they chose him in the first place three years ago.
"In the 2022 and 2023 elections, a crucial slice of voters down on the economy and Biden’s performance voted for Democrats in the key races anyway, largely because they viewed the Trump-aligned GOP alternatives as too extreme," he writes. "Eventually, Trump’s excesses could shape the 2024 election as much as Biden’s record will."
Mod: Donald says these things because he thinks it will get him off the hook. Could he be right?
'More emboldened by the day': Trump's holiday attack on court clerk sparks horror (Raw Storylink): Donald Trump posted a Thanksgiving greeting that immediately devolved into a tirade against court and law enforcement officials he claims are targeting him for political reasons.
The former president offered a holiday message reminiscent of his infamous Nov. 27, 2013, tweet wishing a "Happy Thanksgiving to all -- even the haters and losers!" but this year's greeting ran on at length in an attack on New York attorney general Letitia James, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron and his clerk, and President Joe Biden.
"Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, who has let Murder & Violent Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a 'Psycho,' Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a 'tiny' Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the 'Bench' & tell him what to do; & Crooked Joe Biden, who has WEAPONIZED his Department of Injustice against his Political Opponent, & allowed our Country to go to HELL; & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY," the ex-president posted. "Have no fear, however, we will WIN the Presidential Election of 2024, & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"
The message puzzled many social media users, who pointed to the post as yet another example of why Trump is unfit to serve again as president.
"If this is your idea of a good Thanksgiving message and you want this authoritarian weirdo to return to power, you might want to log off, go for a walk, and think carefully about your worldview," said author and global politics professor Brian Klaas.
"It seems like, maybe, just maybe, the media as a whole can stop the 'Biden is losing his mind' narrative and, well, maybe look elsewhere," tweeted author and sportswriter Jeff Pearlman.
"Trump discovering semicolons is like velociraptors learning how to open doors," said author and professor Jeff Sharlet.
"Would it be inappropriate to read Trump's Thanksgiving wishes at the dinner table today?" said X user Annie van Leur. "(I'm a guest this year)."
"This man has serious issues," tweeted biology professor Nikole Weisendanger. "He cannot drop the hate even on a day you’re supposed to reflect and be thankful for your life, family, and friends."
"On Thanksgiving, Trump attacks the judge’s clerk in his civil fraud trial by name — a day after the court released some of the deluge of antisemitic threats she’s gotten," said Adam Klasfeld, senior legal correspondent for The Messenger. "In a sworn affidavit, a court officer said these threats spike when he attacks her."
"He becomes more emboldened by the day," replied X user Jeff Droz. "When he was 'impeached' and realized that was nothing more than a word, he realized he is untouchable. And he’s right.
Mod: This really is bad news. Now I am going to have to watch it.
MAGA Republicans Are Trying To Boycott The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (PoliticusUSAlink): Stephen Miller’s MAGA group America First Legal is trying to stage a boycott of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade because they are accusing Macy’s of discriminating against straight white men.
America First Legal claims in its complaint that Macy’s is engaging in racial discrimination through its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. Macy’s is trying to hold that long discriminated against group of Americans known as straight white men down.
This frivolous complaint is a dog whistle to straight white men from America’s Next Top Incel, Stephen Miller. Trump and his minions know that they have zero chance of returning to power without getting straight white men afraid and angry. The complaint against Macy’s is an attempt to do exactly that.
MAGA was never about economic anxiety or any of the other cover stories. MAGA is a political movement that is trying to stop the demographic progress of American society. MAGA is the wail of scared white men who are afraid that they are going to lose their power. Macy’s joins every black prosecutor that is prosecuting Trump in being accused of racism by MAGA.
Straight white men losing a tiny sliver of the advantage that they had for hundreds of years in the United States isn’t racism. It’s progress, and progress is what terrifies Trump and MAGA the most.
Mod: So which Macy's perfume counter denied Stephen a job?
Mod: Chaffetz might have beentalking about the high priced butterball to the left.
Fox News host's '$90 Turkey' claim mocked as prices plunge in 'Thanksgiving miracle' (AlterNetlink): A Fox News host’s claim he spent $90 on a Thanksgiving turkey is getting tremendous pushback and mockery as economists note the price of turkeys, gas, airplane travel, and even complete Thanksgiving Day dinners have all dropped in what one jovially declared a “Thanksgiving miracle.”
“We went to go buy a turkey today — it was $90 for a turkey,” former Republican U.S. Congressman turned Fox News host Jason Chaffetz said Monday (video below).”The price of stamps is up 32% in the last four years. But it’s all a choice by Joe Biden. That is what Bidenomics is.”
Chaffetz was roundly mocked, with many posting ads from their local grocers showing the price of turkeys this Thanksgiving, which CNBC and others report is actually lower than last year. “On average, Americans can expect to pay $35.40 for a 15-pound turkey this year — an average of $2.36 per pound,” FinanceBuzz reports. “At more than $50 per bird ($52.85), Hawaii has the highest average turkey prices of all the states.
In the contiguous U.S., Minnesota and California tie for the highest average price at $41.85.”
“Almost everything on the Thanksgiving menu is lower – prices for cranberries have dropped 18%,” CNBC reports. “But the main reason for the decrease is due to the star of the show — the turkey. This year, a 16-pound turkey is averaging $27.35, down 5.6% from a year ago.” Inflation dropped from 9.1% annually in June of last year to 3.2% annually last month — inflation in the month of October was zero.
Mod: Why of course he is. Now go and burn some books in his honor.
'Moms For Liberty' Pastor Is a Registered Sex Offender (Meidas Touch Networklink): Phillip Fisher Jr., a pastor who provides membership outreach to faith communities for the Philadelphia Chapter of the hate group Moms for Liberty, pleaded guilty in 2012 to aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.
Fisher, who leads the Center for Universal Divinity in Olney, Pennsylvania, and grooms local faith leaders for membership in Moms for Liberty, served three years in prison for the felony charge, including 20 months in jail awaiting trial, before he pleaded guilty and was released. He said he was experiencing violence from other inmates. When the news was made public, Fisher resigned from his position in the Philadelphia Republican City Committee where he served as a ward leader.
Fisher was also a volunteer at the Moms for Liberty summit this Summer in Philadelphia, where Trump, Ron Desantis and Nikki Haley all gave speeches. That was the gathering where a co-founder of the group defended an Indiana chapter for posting a Hitler quote on the front of their newsletter.
Both Moms for Liberty and local Republican leaders were said to be shocked at the news. Moms for Liberty founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice told Newsweek in a statement, "We do not condone the actions of anyone who hurts children—ever."
Fisher is listed in the sex offender registry in Illinois where he is from. “I never went out of my way to hide anything,” Fisher said. “I’m in the database. It’s an easy search.”
Moms for Liberty is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its purpose is to ban books and destroy diversity education in public schools, especially LGBT education, as it targets the LGBT community with hateful rhetoric.
Moms for Liberty backed candidates lost huge in School Board elections nationwide in the off-year election earlier this month.
Mod: Meidas Touch offers glimpses into Donald Trump's roiling madness.
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like 'Golden Showers' from Prostitutes - Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises red flags (Meidas Touchlink): Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes.
To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.” Trump went into this depraved and disgusting tirade unprompted as part of his scripted remarks.
Trump then proceeded to brag that the leader of the Taliban was nice to him. Trump said to the tiny crowd in Iowa, “I wonder if [the Taliban leader] calls Biden ‘your excellency.' I don't think so,” Trump proclaimed.
Other notable moments of the speech included when Trump said that he had a disease named after him, praised President Xi and Putin, and mocked Iowa’s two Republican Senators.
Trump’s speech in Iowa where he laid bare his views on “golden showers” was the first major event since his Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire where he echoed Adolf Hitler by saying he will “root out” his political opponents who he referred to as “vermin.”
Mod: Additional content at the link includes video of Trump making these statements.
Mod: Good to see a Court of Law catching up with the popular reality.
You Can Now Legally Call Donald Trump An Insurrectionist (PoliticusUSAlink): A court in Colorado found that Donald Trump incited an insurrection against the United States of America, which means you can call Trump an insurrectionist. The Court ruled:
The Court concludes that Trump acted with the specific intent to incite political violence and direct it at the Capitol with the purpose of disrupting the electoral certification. Trump cultivated a culture that embraced political violence through his consistent endorsement of the same. He responded to growing threats of violence and intimidation in the lead-up to the certification by amplifying his false claims of election fraud. He convened a large crowd on the date of the certification in Washington, D.C., focused them on the certification process, told them their country was being stolen from them, called for strength and action, and directed them to the Capitol where the certification was about to take place.
When the violence began, he took no effective action, disregarded repeated calls to intervene, and pressured colleagues to delay the certification until roughly three hours had passed, at which point he called for dispersal, but not without praising the mob and again endorsing the use of political violence. The evidence shows that Trump not only knew about the potential for violence, but that he actively promoted it and, on January 6, 2021, incited it. His inaction during the violence and his later endorsement of the violence corroborates the evidence that his intent was to incite violence on January 6, 2021 based on his conduct leading up to and on January 6, 2021.
Trump was only able to stay on the ballot in Colorado because the Court also found that since the President Of The United States isn’t one of the federal officers listed in Article 14 Section 3 of the Constitution, it does not apply to Trump in this case.
In reality, the courts and state elected officials who supervise elections are very reluctant to establish the precedent of removing candidates from the presidential ballot.
The effort to get Trump disqualified is a long-shot bid that could be better served by waiting until after Trump is potentially convicted of crimes against the United States. The big news is that Trump has been legally found to have incited an insurrection against the United States.
Mod: Anybody know why Chris Christie wasn't invited? Just these jokers?
2024 GOP hopefuls compete for evangelicals’ support at forum RNC warned them not to attend (Raw Storylink): Republican presidential candidates shared personal stories about their faith, their opposition to abortion and their support of Israel at the Family Leader’s Presidential Thanksgiving Forum in Des Moines Friday, hoping to win evangelical Iowans’ support in the 2024Iowa caucuses.
Three candidates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, participated in the roundtable discussion. Only two other candidates who were invited did not appear: U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who dropped out of the race Sunday, and former President Donald Trump.
The former president, who holds a significant lead over his Republican rivals, has skipped the majority of “cattle call” events in Iowa as well as the Republican National Committee’s presidential debates where he would appear alongside other candidates. Instead, he typically holds his own, separate events, and this Saturday he plans to hold a rally in Fort Dodge.
Family Leader President and CEO Bob Vander Plaats, who moderated the forum, asked candidates to avoid attacking other candidates during the discussion — but did bring up the derogatory nicknames and bashing that the presidential hopefuls have faced, referencing Trump’s terms for his opponents like “DeSanctimonious” for DeSantis and “Bird Brain” for Haley. “They’ve called me names and I’m not running for anything,” Vander Plaats said.
As the 2024 nominating cycle draws near, Republicans looking for an alternative to Trump are looking for the field to consolidate with conservatives rallying behind a single candidate. In the most recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll, DeSantis and Haley tied with 16% of likely Republican caucusgoers listing them as their first choice in the Jan. 15, 2024 caucuses.
Mod: The Economist comes out with its 2024 "World Ahead" prognosis, and the Orange Rat tops their list.
Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024 (The Economistlink): A shadow looms over the world. In this week’s edition we publish The World Ahead 2024, our 38th annual predictive guide to the coming year, and in all that time no single person has ever eclipsed our analysis as much as Donald Trump eclipses 2024. That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probability is beginning to sink in.
Mr Trump dominates the Republican primary. Several polls have him ahead of President Joe Biden in swing states. In one, for the New York Times, 59% of voters trusted him on the economy, compared with just 37% for Mr Biden. In the primaries, at least, civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions have only strengthened Mr Trump. For decades Democrats have relied on support among black and Hispanic voters, but a meaningful number are abandoning the party. In the next 12 months a stumble by either candidate could determine the race—and thus upend the world.
This is a perilous moment for a man like Mr Trump to be back knocking on the door of the Oval Office. Democracy is in trouble at home. Mr Trump’s claim to have won the election in 2020 was more than a lie: it was a cynical bet that he could manipulate and intimidate his compatriots, and it has worked. America also faces growing hostility abroad, challenged by Russia in Ukraine, by Iran and its allied militias in the Middle East and by China across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. Those three countries loosely co-ordinate their efforts and share a vision of a new international order in which might is right and autocrats are secure.
Because MAGA Republicans have been planning his second term for months, Trump 2 would be more organised than Trump 1. True believers would occupy the most important positions. Mr Trump would be unbound in his pursuit of retribution, economic protectionism and theatrically extravagant deals. No wonder the prospect of a second Trump term fills the world’s parliaments and boardrooms with despair. But despair is not a plan. It is past time to impose order on anxiety.
The greatest threat Mr Trump poses is to his own country. Having won back power because of his election-denial in 2020, he would surely be affirmed in his gut feeling that only losers allow themselves to be bound by the norms, customs and self-sacrifice that make a nation. In pursuing his enemies, Mr Trump will wage war on any institution that stands in his way, including the courts and the Department of Justice.
Mod: The world's richest man shouldn't also have the world's biggest mouth.
Elon Musk Tries to Backpedal After Agreeing With Anti-Semitic Tweet – and Fails Spectacularly (MediaITElink): Elon Musk, man. This guy. On Wednesday, the billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, agreed with a blatantly anti-Semitic post on the platform. And no, this wasn’t some faux “anti-Semitism” that criticized Israel’s policies. No, this was actual “unvarnished anti-Semitism,” as CNN’s Jake Tapper called it.
Here’s the initial tweet from a paid blue checkmark with a couple of thousand followers:
Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much. You want truth said to your face, there it is.
Here is Musk’s reply, which remains up as of this writing:
You have said the actual truth.
That’s right. The guy who owns one of the most influential social media sites in the world publicly agreed with a tweet declaring that Jews push “hatred against whites” while also embracing replacement theory.
Since buying Twitter last year and renaming it X, advertisers have left the platform in droves. This latest thing? It will not help. At this rate, the only advertisers left will be crypto scams and the Hitler Store.
