Hilarious! Mourning Joe and Mika Kissed Trump's Ring at Mar-a-Lago on Friday

By David Strom | HotAir.com

Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File

Call it the walk of shame, kissing the ring, bending the knee, or whatever you like, but clearly the big bosses at MSNBC demanded that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski humiliate themselves publicly in what I hope will be a vain attempt to save the failing network. 

On Fridays, Joe and Mika traveled to Mar-a-Lago to personally meet with Donald Trump to "restart communications" with LITERALLY HITLER.

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Byron York @ByronYork

Annals of shamelessness: They call Trump a fascist, and much, much more, and then, just 22 days after his 'Nazi-like' rally, they fly to Florida for an audience. Afterward, they say, 'We didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues,' but they want to 'restart communications.' What?

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Brian Stelter@brianstelter

Joe and Mika went to Mar a Lago to talk with Trump over the weekend. First face-to-face meeting in seven years. "We didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so," @JoeNBC says. "What we did agree on – was to restart communications," @morningmika says.

 CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO.

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Reading a prepared statement for over 10 minutes this morning, Joe and Mika looked into the camera and at an audience they have gaslit for a decade and declared that Democrats and Donald Trump should sing Kumbaya together. 

Needless to say, the entirety of their speech was bizarre and inexplicable but for two facts: 1) Joe and Mika always knew they were hoaxing the American people and their audience in particular; and 2) their ratings are tanking and they need a new grift. 

Since MSNBC's business model--being Regime Media for the transnational elite is clearly failing--they are desperately seeking a new audience. And, since they obviously have no skillset that applies to journalism, they are offering their propaganda skills to Donald Trump.

Three weeks ago, Joe and Mika were insisting that Trump was going to throw them in jail, send the military off to execute his domestic enemies, create concentration camps, and install a white supremacist 1000-year Reich. Now, they are talking about bipartisanship. 

While Joe and Mika themselves don't matter much to me besides giving me cheap and easy content to write, their audience's reaction will say a lot about the kind of people who lap up every word they have said for a decade. Will they howl in outrage? Will they react positively?

Will they realize that they have been lied to all this time? Will they see that MSNBC is nothing but a propaganda outlet that demonstrates contempt for its watchers every moment of every day? 

That MSNBC still had an audience at all after Joe Biden's debate performance says something scary about the power of brainwashing. The propagandists at the network had moved heaven and earth to convince people that the decline in Biden's mental faculties was not real blew up in their faces at the end of June, but MSNBC just kept chugging along with an audience that didn't seem to realize they had been misled. 

Will the same happen after this second blow to their credibility? Will people continue to watch Rachel Maddow as MSNBC tries to recalibrate from "Trump is Hitler" to "Kumbaya?" Can its viewers twist themselves into pretzels like this? Is that how brainwashing works?

I have long said that one of the most important tasks MAGA has is destroying the Pravda Media, and Trump's election is having the desired effect. 

Watching Joe and Mika kiss the ring as their network collapses into irrelevance is immensely funny and satisfying to watch. 

But the personal humiliation of these vile propagandists isn't the point. Breaking the brainwashing is what is essential. It's too soon to predict whether that goal will be accomplished. 

Big Foundations Helped Democrats Lose the Election

By 

 

Ira Stoll | 

The Wall Street Journal

Supporters of Kamala Harris react to her concession speech in Washington, Nov. 6. PHOTO: KEVIN MOHATT/REUTERS

On inflation, immigration and transgenderism, progressive philanthropies took the party to places voters didn’t want to go.

To the list of those to blame for the Democrats’ loss, add some of America’s largest philanthropic foundations.

On three big issues of the presidential campaign—inflation, immigration and transgenderism—charitable foundations and their grantees supported policies that wound up damaging the Democrats. The culprits include the $25 billion Open Society Foundations, the $16 billion Ford Foundation, and the $12.8 billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

On inflation, a 2020 Hewlett Foundation Economy and Society Initiative memo urged governments to “spend on efforts that boost aggregate demand without worrying about inflation quite so frantically.” Foundation executive Jennifer Harris, who helped launch the initiative, went to work in the Biden White House. She served from 2021-23 as a special assistant to the president and senior director on the National Security Council and National Economic Council. When she rejoined Hewlett, the foundation credited her with having been “a key contributor” to the Biden administration’s economic policy. A June 2024 piece in the New York Times called her “The Queen Bee of Bidenomics” while noting that her ideas “haven’t yet taken hold in the broader electorate.”

Another idea that hasn’t “yet” taken hold is that unlimited numbers of asylum seekers and refugees should be admitted to the U.S. and housed indefinitely at taxpayer expense in urban hotels. Many legal immigrants and their descendants think the Biden border policies have been a disaster. Who is responsible? The International Refugee Assistance Project took the credit, so it certainly deserves some of the blame. “We are proud that many of our recommendations and advocacy priorities have been incorporated into the Biden Administration’s agenda,” the group boasted in its 2021 annual report.

The International Refugee Assistance Project’s backers include the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation. Ford also backs an umbrella group called Grantmakers Concerned With Immigrants and Refugees, whose activities include an Undocumented in Philanthropy Network, aiming to “increase the representation of current and formerly undocumented professionals throughout the philanthropic sector.”

A survey of swing voters by Blueprint, a Democratic research initiative, found that along with inflation and immigration, Kamala Harris’s focus on “cultural issues like transgender issues” was a top reason for choosing Donald Trump. Ms. Harris should blame the American Civil Liberties Union for setting her up to lose. On a 2019 candidate questionnaire, the advocacy organization badgered her into favoring taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for detained illegal immigrants. Voters punished her for it five years later.

The ACLU has some features of a grassroots organization but since 2001 it’s been led by former Ford Foundation executive Anthony Romero. The ACLU takes in millions from foundations such as Ford and Hewlett, both members of Grantmakers United for Trans Communities and signers of a pledge to “increase our grantmaking for trans communities.”

No doubt, immigration, inflation and improving medical care for prisoners and detainees are issues on which private philanthropy can play a constructive role. Yet vast endowments have a way of insulating foundation executives and board members from political reality. Politicians running in contested elections don’t have that luxury.

Next time around, policymakers may want to think twice before borrowing ideas from the foundation world. And contemporary tycoons tempted to establish organizations aimed at influencing policy might consider whether they’d be better off giving their fortunes away themselves, in their own lifetimes.

Video of Trump Dance Bringing the Joy Back to America Going Viral: ‘Make America Fun Again’

By Rusty Weiss | RedState.com

AP Photo/Steve Helber

Donald Trump's dance moves are sweeping the nation. Remarkably, the Kamala Harris campaign started off promising "joy," and it's the guy they keep comparing to Hitler who is actually delivering.

Oh, the irony.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) shared a video of the dance craze, which, in reality, started with Trump's presidential campaign in 2020. Trump began closing out rallies by busting a move to the Village People’s hit song, “YMCA.”

The New York Times at the time had questioned whether or not Trump had the stamina to hold campaign rallies post-COVID. So he responded by dancing. For four straight years.

Anyway, Donalds posted a video showing how, since the election, athletes across every sport, media personalities, and young folks are dancing it up Trump-style since the election.

He captioned the clip, "Make America Fun Again."

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Byron Donalds @ByronDonalds

Make America Fun Again 🇺🇸 #TrumpDance

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO.

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The video begins with former Harris running mate Tim Walz (D-MN), who often danced himself on the campaign trail, or skipped rather, declaring his anger at his opponent for allegedly stealing the joy in America.

"Of all the things that make me mad about those other guys," Walz argued. "And all the things they do wrong. The one thing that I will not forgive them for is they're trying to steal the joy from this country."

The breakaway segment into the "YMCA" song, including the broadcast test pattern, is phenomenal.

Donalds' video includes a Sky News report covering the dance craze post-election.

"Donald Trump's iconic dance moves are sweeping the internet and winning him a lot of fans across the globe," the segment states. "Trump's dance moves were on show throughout and even after his election." 

Sky News notes that "everyone wants to hop on the bandwagon," and the video even features two of their anchors doing the dance.

Go ahead. Play that video and try not to "move it, move it." We dare you.

Thus far, the video has been viewed well over two million times in just over twelve hours since the Florida Republican posted it, with Breaking 911 adding, "The real joy is back."

You'll note a lot of those dance moves involve NFL players celebrating touchdowns or sacks in game, something that began with San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa.

The league fined Bosa a hefty sum for crashing a post-game interview while wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat. So when he next took the field, he opted for the Trump dance instead.

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Riley Gaines @Riley_Gaines_

Yesterday: fined $11,255 for wearing a MAGA hat 

Today: celebrates with the iconic Trump dance after a sack

In a world of Colin Kaepernicks, be a Nick Bosa

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO.

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Wild to think Trump took a sport dominated by attention-hungry social justice warriors kneeling in disgust over America and turned them into joyful, dancing players optimistic about the future of this country again.

As our colleague Bob Hoge has noted, more and more Trump voters who once hid their support for the President-elect are finally letting their "freak flags fly."

Joy is back in America, baby! And it took Donald J. Trump to revive it.

PLOT TWIST: Trump Appoints His Former Legal Defense Team to Key Department of Justice Offices

By streiff | RedState.com

Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP

President-elect Donald Trump has turned to his legal defense team to fill the top three positions in the Department of Justice after the position of Attorney General.

Todd Blanche, a Department of Justice veteran and former supervising prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, has been nominated to serve as Deputy Attorney General, the number-two slot in that agency. Blanche served as Trump's primary defense counsel in his federal and New York cases.

Emil Bove was co-counsel with Blanche on Trump's trials. He is also a veteran federal prosecutor who served in the Southern District of New York.

D. John Sauer, former solicitor general for Missouri and the man who won Trump's immunity case before the Supreme Court, will become US Solicitor General.

These appointments show why the fixation on Matt Gaetz is mostly posturing. This team has not only worked for Trump; they have worked together very successfully. They are seasoned trial lawyers, and two of them know how the Department of Justice works. They are the guys who will be in charge of Justice's day-to-day operations, and any substantive reform of that agency will be their doing.

The great legal minds inside the Department of Justice who ran the various legal cases against Trump and his associates, the jaywalkers and trespassers of January 6, and pro-life grandmas may have just entered the FO stage of FAFO.

Donald Trump Is Set to Make MAGA America's Defining Political Movement

By Josh Hammer | Townhall.com

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

When one considers Donald Trump's Cabinet selections announced thus far, there are a few themes that emerge.

One discernible theme, which has been the subject of constant teeth-gnashing all week, is the unorthodox or perhaps outright surprising nature of some of the picks. Tulsi Gabbard, tapped as our next director of national intelligence, is not a career spy. Pete Hegseth, Trump's inspired choice to be our next secretary of defense, is not a company man who steadily worked his way up through the Pentagon's labyrinthine bureaucracy. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is a famously iconoclastic figure. And if you had consummate "Florida man" Matt Gaetz on your bingo card as Trump's pick for U.S. attorney general, then you're quite a bit more prescient than me.

But there is at least one other clearly discernible theme that emerges when one considers all those who Trump has picked to surround himself with: Many of these people are young. 

Gabbard is 43. Hegseth 44. Gaetz is 42. Elise Stefanik, Trump's pick for ambassador to the United Nations, is 40. Lee Zeldin, Trump's pick for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is 44. Vivek Ramaswamy, who will manage the newly announced Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk, is 39. Marco Rubio, Trump's pick for secretary of state, isn't exactly an old geezer at 53; ditto his fellow Floridian Michael Waltz, Trump's pick for national security advisor, who is 50. And lest we forget, Trump's own running mate and soon-to-be vice president, JD Vance, just turned 40 a few months ago.

That is a lot of high-ranking young -- or at least comparatively young -- people. And there are still many top positions in the second Trump administration that remain unannounced, raising the distinct possibility of even more young blood getting tapped for powerful leadership positions. What exactly is going on here?

Trump, it seems, is not merely interested this time around in draining the swamp once and for all. He will not be content with just finishing the unfinished work of truly making America great again. Rather, he has a greater goal in mind: He is trying to foster an intergenerational legacy and solidify MAGA as America's dominant early-to-mid-21st-century political movement.

American history has often been defined by political movements that dominate not merely a singular eponymous presidency but a broader epoch. There was the protectionist "American System" of Henry Clay. There was Jacksonian populism. There was the era of the welfare state, epitomized by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. There was the laissez-faire "Washington Consensus" of the late-20th-century Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton presidencies.

Now, Trump wants MAGA to be the defining political movement of our own era.

And why not? Trump has already secured the most racially, ethnically and religiously diverse winning presidential coalition in modern Republican Party history. He has made historical inroads with Hispanic voters, Black men and voters under the age of 35 -- the very groups that formed the core of Barack Obama's own twice-victorious presidential coalition. He has managed to maintain an economic appeal to everyone from billionaire entrepreneurs like Musk to Sean O'Brien, the Teamsters president who gave a primetime speech at this summer's Republican National Convention. There are already numerous high-profile former Democrats, such as Gabbard and RFK Jr., who have been tapped to Cabinet-level posts.

Obama's one-time "coalition of the ascendant" has, in fact, descended. It has crashed and burned, and the modern Democratic Party is nothing less than vanquished. And what has risen in its stead? That would be the movement that delivered Republicans their first national popular vote win in two decades: MAGA.

The more pressing question is: What exactly will MAGA actually be in the years -- and decades -- ahead?

Above all, MAGA means nothing more than pragmatism -- good old-fashioned common sense. It means an immigration policy that prioritizes cultural preservation and wage earners' bank accounts -- not corporate fat cats. It means a trade policy that prioritizes rejuvenating American manufacturing and reshoring -- or at least "ally-shoring" -- critical supply chains. It means a greater push toward reforming America's sclerotic labor system, perhaps even abandoning it outright for European-style sectoral bargaining. It means a foreign policy laser-focused on soberly securing America's national interest -- not romanticizing democracy promotion or the pursuit of liberal universalism.

Call it the common-sense coalition. But whatever you want to call MAGA, it's young. It's a generational, legacy-defining play for Trump, and it's here to stay. And that is a very good thing for the future of these once-and-future-great United States.

Florida Sues FEMA Director for Civil Rights Violations During Hurricane Recovery

By streiff | RedState.com

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that FEMA Director Deanne Criswell and FEMA reservist Marn'i Washington violated the civil rights of conservative Floridians by denying services to anyone displaying Trump campaign signs or banners.

“While the facts will continue to come out over the weeks and months, it is already clear that Defendant Washington conspired with senior FEMA officials, as well as those carrying out her orders, to violate the civil rights of Florida citizens,” reads the complaint.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Fort Pierce, Fla., asks for unspecified damages and a declaration that the two FEMA officials unlawfully conspired to violate Floridians’ civil rights. 

“It’s unacceptable for the federal government to discriminate against Floridians who voted for Trump, and especially egregious in the aftermath of a hurricane,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a statement.

“I’m supportive of this legal action by the Attorney General’s Office, and I have instructed state agencies to likewise take any action necessary to investigate and ensure those who engaged in this behavior are held accountable.” 

This saga began with a whistleblower leaking internal FEMA communications to the Daily Wire after they were ordered to avoid residences displaying items supporting President-elect Trump's candidacy.

The supervisor who, in imitation of an episode of The Wire, documented a criminal conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Trump voters, has confirmed in television interviews on two occasions, the last being today, that what she did was carry out agency policy. According to her, workers were told to treat the homes of Trump supporters as though there were vicious dogs on those properties.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO.

I'm not sure this is the sure-win defense she thinks it is.

Florida's lawsuit, plus an incoming Trump administration, should get to the bottom of how punishing the political opposition fits into FEMA's mission statement.

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OUTRAGE: FEMA Workers Working Hurricane Milton Aftermath Ordered to Bypass Houses With Trump Signs – RedState

UPDATE: FEMA Official Who Ordered Bypassing of Trump Supporters' Homes 'Removed From Role' – RedState

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FLASHBACK: Was FEMA Punishing Trump Supporters in North Carolina? – RedState

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Democrats Are In Deep Trouble

By John Hinderaker | Powerline.com

There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among Democrats, following Donald Trump’s unexpected (by them) victory. How could this possibly have happened? is the question newspapers, television hosts, and Democratic pundits are asking.

It actually isn’t a hard question to answer. The Biden/Harris administration had an indefensible record, and Kamala Harris didn’t seriously try to defend it, absurdly presenting herself as the candidate of change, while at the same time unable to identify a single respect in which her administration would be different from Biden’s.

Voters were unhappy about inflation, about the economy in general, and about the border. The Democrats, having created these problems, had no solutions to offer. Instead, they tried to tell voters that their concerns were imaginary.

Also, Kamala herself was a lousy candidate.

But the reality is worse than that. As the dust settles, I think Democrats will realize they are in a deeper hole than they thought. It was no coincidence that Harris refused to say what her position was on a variety of issues, earning the title of the “no comment” candidate–something that must be unprecedented in presidential history. The problem wasn’t that Kamala was tongue-tied, the problem was that the Democrats no longer have a coherent policy agenda.

The one issue that Harris never refrained from talking about was abortion. That is, today, the Democrats’ signature–and arguably only–issue. Apart from a fervent devotion to abortion, up to the moment of birth and beyond, what do they stand for?

A few years ago, the energy in the Democratic Party was in its socialist wing. Several of its seemingly up-and-coming representatives were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Bernie Sanders is the grand old man of socialism. On one memorable occasion, Nancy Pelosi was unable to explain how a Democrat is different from a socialist.

But the bloom is off that rose. Socialism was never a serious alternative for America; it is a discredited ideology that has been rejected around the world. And socialism is not a plausible ideology for a party whose core demographic is people who earn over $200,000 a year.

The Democrats are the party of DEI and Kamala Harris was a DEI candidate, but DEI is widely unpopular. The United States has labored under affirmative action, of which DEI is the current iteration, for 50 years. But Americans don’t like race discrimination or sex discrimination, and they believe in merit. An unbroken history of polling, stretching back for decades, has found that race and sex discrimination in employment and education are unpopular. Despite the massive corporate, government and cultural pressure that has tried to force DEI on Americans, that remains true. DEI, now on its way out, can hardly be the basis for future Democratic campaigns.

Opening the borders and admitting millions of illegal immigrants has been the core policy priority of the Biden administration, as reflected in Biden’s day-one executive orders. But it was a policy prescription that Democrats were never able to openly articulate and defend. Thus, as the 2024 election approached they were reduced to making the absurd claim that “the Southern border is secure.” Open borders are deeply and correctly unpopular, and do not provide a platform on which any future Democrat can run, although no doubt we will see plenty of tearjerking stories about illegals who are being deported.

The energy issue is analogous. Occasionally a Democrat will say publicly what the party really believes, that Americans live too well, and we must reduce our standard of living in order to emit less carbon dioxide. This view is manifested in efforts to suppress oil and gas production and subsidize and mandate expensive renewables. But the Democrats can’t admit that their goal is to make gasoline unaffordable, so when elections roll around they release the strategic petroleum reserve to drive the price down. The bottom line is that Democrats can yammer endlessly about the climate, but they can’t run on a platform of unaffordable energy.

The Democrats have always been the party of high taxes and unrestrained spending, ostensibly in pursuit of high-minded goals. But hardly anyone buys that anymore. Blue states are failing, without exception, and Americans are flocking to low-tax, low-spending red states–where they find that quality of life is better, not worse, than the states that spend vastly more on government programs.

Ever since the 1960s, the Democrats have been the party of peace (or, at least, anti-war). They have never repudiated the pacifism and borderline anti-Americanism of those days, and as recently as 2008, Barack Obama ascended from obscurity to a presidential nomination largely because he was almost the only prominent Democrat to oppose the Iraq war from the beginning. But now Republicans are running as a peace party, and it is Democrats who cling to international commitments and want to keep the Ukraine war, in particular, going.

Issues relating to war and peace are complicated, and the parties’ inclinations do not fall into a simple hawk/dove paradigm. But for the foreseeable future, Democratic Party platforms will not be based on opposition to foreign wars, nor will an “America last” ideology ever be a vote-getter.

So the Democrats’ problems go a lot deeper than a senile president and an inept candidate. At this point, the party’s historic policy agenda is in tatters and needs a complete reboot–something of which party leaders seem incapable.