Saturday, November 30, 2024
Friday, November 29, 2024
It's amazing how so-called conservative women will twist themselves into pretzels to defend Pete Hegseth, for example by lowering Brett Kavanaugh to his level
Don’t let the left do to Pete Hegseth what it did to Brett Kavanaugh
It’s the Brett Kavanaugh show all over again. ... Was Hegseth also in another relationship at the time [2017]? Maybe. But he’s being nominated for secretary of defense, not for the role of our boyfriend or husband. His personal life issues should stay personal.
As Megyn Kelly pointed out, “Having difficulty in one’s personal relationship, especially after having served two tours — which it’s not uncommon for these combat vets to come back and not be able to navigate their love lives all that well — is much different than being a rapist.”
Brett Kavanaugh isn't on his third wife, or his second, and hasn't cheated on his first one, let alone on three and then lied about it by omission. There is no moral equivalence between Pete Hegseth and Brett Kavanaugh whatsoever.
Hegseth meanwhile served in combat in Iraq in 2005-6, having married wife number one in 2004. That marriage ended in 2009, reportedly due to his infidelity, and he remarried the very next year in 2010, both of which life-altering events occurred while he was executive director of Vets For Freedom, 2007-2012.
In 2012 he was an active duty military instructor in Afghanistan, but evidently for not very long.
In that same year he had started a political action committee called MN PAC, briefly ran for the US Senate from Minnesota starting in February, lost at the Republican Convention in May, and also became CEO of Concerned Veterans for America that year, a job he held until 2015, having become a Fox News contributor the previous year.
It is laughable to suggest that this biography matches a man suffering from the post-traumatic stress of two tours of duty in the Middle East. He looks more like an ambitious climber trying to make the most he can out of what little he's got.
Thursday, November 28, 2024
These people disgust me, portraying Pete Hegseth as a victim when he's a predator
While citizens and the Senate should vet Hegseth’s qualifications to be Secretary of Defense, among the issues assessed should not be this claimed sexual assault.
The media appear, however, determined to parrot the allegation, without even superficial scrutiny, reminiscent of their failings regarding Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. While the admirably restrained Hegseth stays quiet, good citizens should voice strong disapproval of a legacy media whose partisan reporting interferes with the good government processes a democracy requires.
Link.
Pete Hegseth was a drunken bum cheating on his baby mama with a married woman in this incident, that's what this is about, and he neglected to inform Donald Trump about it when he was nominated for Secretary of Defense.
That Hegseth is untrustworthy is only underscored by the fact that he cheated on wife number one, cheated on wife number two with his baby mama, whom he impregnated while still married to wife number two, and cheated on his baby mama with a married woman in this incident.
This disgusting piece of trash is more reprehensible than Donald Trump, if that's even possible.
US Senate Republicans should let it be known now that Hegseth will be slowly roasted in front of the television cameras for all to see.
He cannot be allowed to be a role model to any young man seeking to join the US military, unless you want an army like the sex-obsessed Russian army.
The lying media have taken a phrase from David Plouffe and blown it up into something he did not say, so that Republicans and Democrats both can pretend that everything was Kamala Harris' fault
David Plouffe said the campaign did not ever have Harris in the lead specifically in late September and early October in their internal polling, and that this was only his recollection about a period one month before the election.
The guy must have had literally hundreds of polls in his head from throughout the campaign.
When we got in, my recollection is some of that [Biden deficit] snapped back, but you know, we were behind. I mean, I think it surprised people because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw. You know, I mean, it was just basically a race that in the battlegrounds was 46-47, 47-48. So that’s not where we started. We started behind. She was able to climb out.
Here.
Yes, they were behind, big time, in July and August.
But they climbed out indeed, to the point Harris led for the first time by Aug 29 in the public polling averages, and she retook the lead three times in September after losing it in her duel with Trump.
And Harris kept her Sep 18 lead all the way to Sep 29 when Trump overtook her one last time.
After that she never got the lead back again.
Should we be surprised Plouffe's internal polling from late September and early October never showed Harris leading?
Of course not. His internal polling showed him exactly what Real Clear's averages were showing us.
Dishonest media are trying to make Harris look as bad as possible by taking Plouffe's comments to mean she was never ahead at any time in the campaign's internal polling.
That's not what Plouffe said.
Harris for the win Aug 29 |
Harris for the win Sep 4 |
Harris for the win Sep 13 |
Harris for the win Sep 18 |
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Real Clear Polling averages showed that Democrats' so-called Blue Wall had already fallen by Oct 18th, just when Gretchen Whitmer rode to the rescue with its liberal governors in tow
Of course David Plouffe didn't see leads in the internal polling in early Oct. They were disappearing.
RCP polling averages moved PA to Trump by Sep 30th, MI by Oct 9th, NV by Oct 12th, and WI by Oct 18th.
So the Harris campaign's David Plouffe saw public polls showing they might be ahead in early October when Real Clear Politics showed that Harris' last lead ended September 29th
I don't care if it was expected, core pce inflation is higher in October
Yeah, and the preferred gauge is core dammit, 2.8%, not the headline 2.3%.
Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rises to 2.3% annually, meeting expectations
We have been range-bound since April, averaging 2.7% year over year for six months.
The Fed is making ZERO progress, and yet . . .
... traders increased their bets that the Fed would approve another rate cut in December.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Just a reminder that way back in February Emerson College Polling showed Democrats had no options other than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, with Trump beating Joe by one point and Harris by three
The Nancy Pelosi/Barack Obama/Jane Fonda-Rob Reiner cabal which ousted Joe Biden deserves all the scorn it has received, and more.
In February 2024, when 2023 articles from this cabal about dumping Kamala Harris were in the rearview mirror, Harris was under-performing Biden v Trump by just one point, and Harris v Trump was doing 7 points better than Gavin Newsom v Trump and 10 points better than Gretchen Whitmer v Trump. There was no alternative to Joe but Kamala.
Emerson here.
And Joe always knew that, which is why he immediately endorsed Harris on the Sunday of the July coup. He knew she was weak, but he knew her Democrat competition was weaker.
In the end Trump's win over Harris was by only 1.61 points, half what Emerson had predicted, and almost the one point by which Emerson had predicted Trump would beat Biden, the stronger candidate.
Democrats should never have dumped Joe Biden.
They panicked, and the panic lost them The White House. Had they rallied around their president, he might have survived. Instead they lost their nerve and abandoned him to the predator.
Democrats have too many herd followers, not enough leaders. And had Harris truly been a leader, she would have rallied the troops to her president, and she did not. And the pressure from the herd is also what made Joe Biden drop out, signaling his weakness.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, got bloodied by a gunman but defiantly got up and continued to fight, just as he's done all along, rallying his followers by himself to himself, the simple elemental difference between winning and losing.
Monday, November 25, 2024
This is pretty funny
Trump’s second administration set to be filled with losers
At least 17 of his picks have previously lost elections:
Headlines like this are appearing because of the fools we have put in charge
The country of 84 million people has 579 bunkers, mostly from the second world war and the cold war era, which can provide shelter for 480,000 people, down from about 2,000 bunkers previously.
Maybe try Schlachthof Fünf.
Sunday, November 24, 2024
The advice Republicans, and Democrats, never seem to internalize
It's a feature of a libertarian country, not a bug.
Trump's mission against the Swamp is far more grandiose than his mission to repeal Obamacare, but it will end up the same way
And Roger Kimball should know better.
Kimball completely underestimates the role that will be played by the federal government employee unions in opposing Trump's efforts to axe them. And it's downright preposterous to think that the Leviathan State is going to be unraveled by July 4, 2026 when it took literally decades to erect it.
Trump will fail to drain the swamp, and it will consume all the valuable energy of his victory, too, keeping him from succeeding on the agenda items which are within his reach. His actions might even strengthen those unions. His own new Labor Secretary actually advocates for that!
Democrats should be encouraged by this.
They are going to have a field day litigating everything Musk and Ramaswamy try to shut down, which will drag everything out interminably. Liberals funded the hapless Kamala Harris to the tune of $1 billion, so I'm confident the Marc Eliases of the Democrat Party will shift the Resistance to this effort with a similar level of support because it has a high likelihood of hamstringing Trump in the same way Russia Russia Russia did.
It's disappointing that Republicans don't understand that Trump is a deeply divisive transitional figure, not a transformational one, but Democrats made the same mistake with Joe Biden, until it was too late, on whom they turned as on a dime.
The more things change, the more they stay the same lol
Trump's European-style coalition cabinet is full of liberals and conservatism is dead LOL, says tormented son of a member of the John Birch Society
A pro-abortion RFK Jr. at HHS. A pro-union Chavez-DeRemer at Labor. Lefty Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. And gay George Soros adviser Scott Bessent at Treasury.
Mike Allen of AXIOS reminds me of no one so much as George W. Bush: "There is no conservative movement. I redefined the Republican Party".
I think Mike is in a perpetual state of PTSD because his father was a John Bircher.
Donald Trump's problem is that no real conservative wants to be associated with his lame duck brand, so he's got to find people SOMEWHERE to serve in his hapless administration. Might as well be lefties and liberals and Jeb Bush retreads like Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice after the Gaetz flameout.
Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump and George W. Bush are exactly the same person, except Georgie actually got more than 49.83% of the vote.
Iraq combat vets wondered why National Guard member Pete Hegseth showed up in Iraq in 2005 leading a platoon
“I showed up in the 101st Airborne Division, in one of the most storied units in our nation’s history, with a bunch of combat vets who’d already done a tour in Iraq and they looked at me like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’” Hegseth said in a 2021 interview on “The Will Cain Show” podcast.
One former officer who served with Hegseth said he was surprised to see a National Guard member taking on such a role. He surmised that Hegseth probably wanted to run for office someday and thought a combat tour could help, the former officer said. ...
The former Army officer who served with Hegseth in Iraq said he believes he has latched on to “populist scenarios” in a quest for personal gain. When news of Hegseth’s potential nomination emerged, old acquaintances from those days got back in touch with one another, the former officer said.
One text he received especially stood out. All it said: “WTF?”
More.
Saturday, November 23, 2024
The scandal of Pete Hegseth is that HE THINKS the encounter with Jane Doe was bad enough to threaten his job at FOX NEWS but not at the Department of Defense
Hegseth was concerned that she was prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in him being fired from Fox News. ...
The person who reported the assault — whose name, age and sex were not released — had bruises on the right thigh, according to the city’s statement. ...
At the time of the 2017 accusations, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce with his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after infidelity by Hegseth, according to court records.
Fox News host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to serve as defense secretary, paid a confidential financial settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault out of concern that the allegation would lead to his firing from the cable news giant, his lawyer told CBS News. ...
The city of Monterey confirmed the 2017 investigation into Hegseth and said in a statement that investigators found the woman had "contusions" on her right thigh. No charges were filed, Parlatore said.
The Washington Post, which first reported the financial payment, obtained what it referred to as a memo that was sent to the Trump transition team by a friend of the accuser alleging Hegseth raped a conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at the hotel bar. According to the Post, the memo states that the day after the incident, the accuser "had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack."
Earning $100k ain't what it used to be: It used to be a more exclusive club
In 2023 earning $100k made you top 15% of wage earners, but in 2018 it made you top 10%.
$125k is the new top 10%.
2018 |
2023 |