Sometimes I hate the media more than words can say, but it was the NYPD which released the new photos of the unmasked person

Fox News goes with Not The Suspect

 

Not The Suspect

The Suspect

CNBC Goes with Not The Suspect

NYPost goes with Not The Suspect

OMG, the NY Post/Karol Markowicz comparison of Pete Hegseth to Brett Kavanaugh is completely wrong, and now Pete Hegseth goes there to defend himself

 Where else? but in The Wall Street Journal here:

Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced. But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect.

 

CA-13 was decided for the Democrat overnight, so the final US House outcome is GOP 220, Dems 215

 CA-13 flipped Republican in this election, as did CA-27 and CA-45.

Republicans flipped no seats in California, and nationally Democrats picked up one seat on net and the GOP lost one on net.

Republicans have the same razor thin US House majority in the next Congress that they have now.

Bye Bye Red Wave.

DeSantis is far and away better for DOD than Pete Hegseth, but it would be a step down for the governor, and a minefield which could blow up his chances for 2028, if he still has any

 Trump Mulls Replacing Pete Hegseth With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Beside all that, Trump is just poaching again. 

Florida still needs Ron DeSantis, especially to appoint the replacement for the already poached Senator Marco Rubio. One bad decision leads to another.

Can't Trump find anyone else? Isn't this just more evidence of how few quality people find serving in this lame duck presidency an attractive prospect?

Ron DeSantis should also think long and hard about having to defend everything Trump for four years, quite apart from defending the United States, if he's still serious about a 2028 run. He ran against Trump in the primaries, after all, for reasons.

I think this story is more of a trial balloon, an advertisement: "Hey out there! Anyone interested in the job? Help! I gotta get rid of Pete! Please step up!"

For everything else there's MasterCard

 Newsweek falls for X shitposter Parik Patel posing as Trump appointee Kash Patel's dad lol.

 

Kevin Dowd: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels, cancel electric vehicle mandates, do a little dance

 

 

 Kevin Dowd takes over for Maureen Dowd on Thanksgiving, here:

 

Trump promises a return to common sense and has been given the tools to accomplish it with an electoral mandate and all three branches of government on his side. He cannot squander it. He must not get bogged down in petty disputes and perceived slights. ...

There are things he can do right away to make a difference: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels and cancel EV mandates. ...

He should move forward without rancour or grievance, fuelled by the joy of the Trump Shuffle, his robot-like dance that has broken out at UFC fights and across the NFL. I’m going to have the younger members of the family teach it to Maureen on Thanksgiving.

If Joe Biden had won the election, he would surely have commuted the sentence of his son Hunter

 We knew this in June.

 

Talking Points Memo: Poor Hunter Biden lol, and being better, different, more righteous, and more norm-honoring is for chumps like conservatives

The only reason Hunter Biden has been in habitual trouble is because he's a bad boy.

 

Joe Biden more than once pledged not to pardon his son Hunter Biden, but today he did

 The period covered by the pardon goes all the way back to January 1, 2014 for any and all crimes Hunter may have committed, too. You know, like tax crimes. The statute of limitations for tax crimes is ten years.

This wasn't just about the gun crimes.

Meanwhile, 363 people were convicted of tax fraud in 2023, and 63% went to prison. 

It's great to be a Democrat.

 

If only Trump understood anything about the dollar, he wouldn't waste his time embarrassing himself like this

 

The New York Times has obtained an e-mail sent to Pete Hegseth by his mother, and hoo boy, does this fill in the details or what?

 

Inflation under Biden is so bad . . .

 

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.

 

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 Campaign's Polls Never Showed Her Leading Trump

Arthur Delaney, HuffPost

 

 

Harris for the win Aug 29

 

Harris for the win Sep 4

Harris for the win Sep 13

Harris for the win Sep 18

CA-45 has been called for the Democrat, while no one is paying attention today

 The margin of victory is 613 votes.

CA-13 remains uncalled, so GOP HOUSE 220 v DEM HOUSE 214.

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.

The Blue Wall was entirely down by Oct 18th, which would be the final outcome, despite MI and WI flipping back to Harris at the end of October.

Democrats were already dead on Oct 18th. They just didn't know it yet when they showed up at it.

 

Oct 17th

 

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

. . . there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw.

 

Here. 

 

I'm scratching my head over that, but I think everyone's focusing on a fiction of their own making. Plouffe never said they never saw Harris ahead in their internal polling at all, only during the period in question.

 

In the public polling, Harris went ahead in the averages on August 30th and duked it out with Trump throughout September, with the lead changing hands six times. Plouffe can't be talking about that.

 

It would make sense that their internal polling never showed a lead in early October, because it had already disappeared by then.

 

Nevertheless, Harris had recaptured Michigan and Wisconsin by the end of October in the polling averages, even though Trump retained his lead in the Electoral College.

 

I think Plouffe's memory of early October is just a little faulty.

 

That's all.

 

September 19th Harris ahead with 276

September 29th Trump ahead 281

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.

 

Mama said always look on the bright side

 

Kamala Harris is the 2028 Democrat frontrunner lol

 

Never go left

 

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.

 

 

This is pretty funny

 

Trump’s second administration set to be filled with losers 

 At least 17 of his picks have previously lost elections:

Marco Rubio

Linda McMahon

Lori Chavez-DeRemer

Doug Burgum

Doug Collins

Pete Hegseth

Scott Turner

RFK Jr

Lee Zeldin

Matthew Whitaker

Tulsi Gabbard

Dr Mehmet Oz

Pete Hoekstra

Mike Huckabee

Dave Weldon

Vivek Ramaswamy

Karoline Leavitt

 

Biden cashiered 8k for refusing COVID-19 jabs, Trump to remove 15k trannies from US military

 

Headlines like this are appearing because of the fools we have put in charge

 Germany draws up list of bunkers amid Russia tensions: App planned for public to find emergency shelter in places including underground train stations and car parks

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.

 

 

The War Between The States never ended

 

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.

Trump’s Mission To Dismantle the Administrative State

Roger Kimball, Am. Greatness

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same lol

 

I also want to be clear on one thing. Jake Sullivan and I have had discussions. We've met. For our adversaries out there that think this is a time of opportunity, that they can play one administration off the other -- they are wrong. And we are hand in glove. We are one team with the United States in this transition.

Trump's new Surgeon General might as well have come from the Biden administration

 

A GOP House of 221 might be as good as it gets with uncalled CA-45 going Democrat and uncalled CA-13 barely Republican by 204 votes

 

The White House just does this to itself lol

 

Buh-bye.

I'm leavin' . . . on a jet plane . . .

Donald Trump and George W. Bush are the exact same person

 

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. 

The team represents the Trump worldview: Traditional conservatism is dead — and its biggest, lifelong advocates neutered to the point of irrelevance.          

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.

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

Trump’s Pentagon pick paid woman after sex assault allegation but denies wrongdoing, his lawyer says

  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.

 

Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for defense secretary, paid accuser to save job at Fox News, his lawyer says

 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."