Authored by Eric Lendrum via American Greatness,

An election judge in Minnesota is now facing serious criminal charges after he allowed multiple unregistered residents to cast votes anyway in the recent election.

As reported by Breitbart, Judge Timothy Michael Scouton was responsible for overseeing the election process in Badoura Township, a small town with a population of roughly 100 people.

Hubbard County Auditor Kay Rave filed a complaint after she determined that she could not find completed registration forms among the ballots she received from Scouton’s jurisdiction.

This complaint led to an investigation by the Hubbard County Sheriff’s Office.

Eventually, another judge who worked with Scouton on election night came forward and told police that Scouton explicitly ordered voters to not fill out the Minnesota Voter Registration Application.

A third judge said that Scouton simply told new voters to sign the back of a book rather than fill out any official forms.

At least 11 people voted illegally as a result of Scouton’s actions.

He was arrested last week and faces two felony charges: One count of accepting the vote of an unregistered vote, and one count of neglect of duty by an election official.

In a statement following the arrest, the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office issued a statement.

“These allegations are extremely serious and must be fully and thoroughly investigated,” the statement read.

“Election judges take an oath to administer elections in accordance with the law, a deliberate failure to do so is unlawful and a betrayal of the public trust.”

“Minnesota’s elections rely on the dedication and public service of 30,000 people and they are required to conduct their work fairly, impartially, and within the letter of the law,” the statement added.

“The Hubbard County Auditor took prompt and correct action in notifying local authorities of the uncovered discrepancies so they could investigate.”

Scouton had finished his basic election judge training in July of this year.

Adding to the complications of the case, it was revealed that Scouton’s son worked as an election judge on Election Night as well, and was responsible for registering applications.

No sooner did President Trump win the election in a landslide than national average gasoline prices are set to fall below the $3 per gallon mark heading into the holiday season in the U.S.

In fact, national average fuel prices have dropped to their lowest since January, nearing 2021 levels, with further declines likely as West Texas Intermediate crude hovers near its lowest since September, according to Yahoo Finance/Bloomberg.

The Yahoo Finance/Bloomberg article states that AAA predicts 71.7 million people will travel by car for Thanksgiving, the highest since before the pandemic. Gas prices, averaging $3.08 last week, could drop below $3 nationally, with drivers in some states east of the Rockies paying as little as $2.25 to $2.50 per gallon.

Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel tracker GasBuddy, told Yahoo/Bloomberg: “Things at the pump are starting to feel normal for most Americans.”

He added: “In some parts of the deep South, where gasoline taxes are low, we’re seeing gas prices that would be more equivalent of the nostalgia everyone has for the good times.”

“Refineries are struggling under weak crack spreads already, meaning that gasoline demand is anemic, and they’re having a hard time finding a home for all the gasoline they’re producing,” DeHaan concluded. 

Meanwhile Yahoo/Bloomberg notes gasoline demand rebounded above last year’s levels, with nationwide inventories dropping and U.S. refiners producing record amounts to counter a decline in imports. However, the brief Thanksgiving travel surge is unlikely to significantly boost refiners’ margins. 

Traffic congestion, unlike gas prices, will soar, with cities like Boston, New York, and Los Angeles experiencing more than double their usual traffic, according to INRIX.

And international travel is booming, with flight bookings up 23% and cruise bookings rising 20% compared to last year. Air travelers are also benefiting from lower costs, with international flight prices down 5%, according to AAA.

While the decline hasn’t been attributable to President Trump’s re-election just yet, Zero Hedge contributor Quoth the Raven predicted in a note on Monday morning column that Trump in office likely means less geopolitical volatility, and eventually, a continued tailwind for lower gas prices. 

Authored by Christopher Roach via American Greatness,

Though it has only been two weeks, it feels like a long time since Trump won the election, not least because of his rapid-fire release of cabinet nominations. The cabinet is important and demonstrates presidential priorities, as well as his judgment.

Trump’s cabinet so far matches the themes he expressed during the campaign. He is prioritizing immigration, dismantling the Deep State, and uprooting the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” racket. There is also a “national unity” aspect to his picks because of the inclusion of prominent former Democrat supporters like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

So far, things are also running noticeably smoother than they did in 2016. There was a lot of preliminary planning and organization, and it shows.

The Outsider Cabinet

The biggest sign of significant change is the presence of outsiders. His first cabinet included many Bush-administration retreads, military men whom Trump overestimated, and business associates who had no apparent convictions. There was a lot of disloyalty, which magnified the endemic disloyalty of career civil servants.

Looking over Trump’s picks to date, Pete Hegseth seems tasked with prosecuting Trump’s war on “wokeism” within the military, but I am concerned about his lack of experience in managing large organizations. Affirmative action is a major problem in the military, but so too is the bloated procurement system. It needs to be fixed.

Hegseth seems to be a pure gut pick: Trump thought he sounded sharp on Fox News and was impressed with his military record, so now he wants to put him in charge. I hope he’ll rise to the occasion.

Matt Gaetz at the DOJ and Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence head are there to wage war on the Deep State. Both have been personally affected. Gabbard will be good, as she’s obviously bright, has military experience, good foreign policy instincts, and is skeptical of the incumbent organizations.

As an intelligent critic of our interventionist foreign policy, the lying media naturally defames her as a Russian agent. But, after the false Russian collusion allegations against Trump, no one is really listening to this kind of nonsense anymore.

Gaetz has been a hardcore Trump supporter from the beginning, and he will be a major change agent if he can make it through the nomination process. Many at the DOJ are saying they’ll resign if he is appointed; this kind of internal “self-deportation” is a feature and not a bug of Trump’s election. It means Trump gets to hire more people, deal with fewer fifth columnists, and make more of a mark on these run-amok federal agencies.

RFK Jr. at Health and Human Services is the counterweight to the regulatory capture of the FDA and totalitarian instincts of the public health establishment. RFK Jr. has some peculiar and out-of-mainstream ideas. Alternative medicine is, in fact, full of false and dangerous fads, whether it is colloidal silver or using radio waves to diminish autism.

But these ideas are not much crazier than the mandatory masking, social distance rules, and experimental vaccine mandates during COVID. Most important, he appears to respect patient autonomy and recognizes the primary root of health lies not in medicine, but in a healthier lifestyle.

Even though South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, long-time advisor Steven Miller and proposed immigration Tsar, Tom Homan, are the real capos for the deportation agenda. This seems to be a high priority for the administration.

These are tough, smart, and clear-eyed men who understand the issues well. They inspire confidence.

A Rejection of Managerialism

Each of these nominees is a living refutation of the dominant practices of managerial credentialism. For most of Washington, D.C., a very narrow sense of who is qualified for senior roles ends up doing a lot of work to affect substantive outcomes. This gatekeeping practice looks to credentials and conformity as keys to the realm. Who can forget chubby Alexander Vindman and his praise of the sacred “interagency process?”

Washington’s credentialism is more than a matter of having elite degrees. Critics have mocked Hegseth, even though he is a Princeton and Harvard graduate, reached the rank of major in the National Guard, and is a double Bronze Star winner and combat veteran. But he didn’t follow the usual path and is an unapologetic right-winger, so he is suspect.

Credentialism means one works through the ranks in the same way as everyone currently in authority so that the organization is always replicating itself. An aspirant must be part of the “blob,” wait his turn, learn the acceptable ways to think and talk, and quickly adopt new fads, such as listing pronouns in a LinkedIn bio.

This process yields conformist mediocrities and moral cowards. This includes everyone from the four-star generals who boldly retconned the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan into a success to the current heads of the State Department, CIA, FBI, and DOD. It would be very damaging to this system if outsiders figured out the jobs quickly and were able to achieve better results.

Above all, managerialism is an ideology that empowers credentialed technocrats. It has a strong aversion to anything natural, organic, or unregulated. This is at least one of the roots of the recent obsession with misinformation and disinformation. A raucous, sometimes-wrong, and completely unregulated “marketplace of ideas” is simply too threatening to the managerial class.

Such a freewheeling system risks exposing official lies, such as the outsider-led discovery that COVID was almost certainly a lab leak, which was covered up by lifelong bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci.

New Standards

If the legacy ruling class treated Trump’s first term as an aberration, they seem to understand that 2024 is different. While they seethe, they must also admit that the American people have rejected the left’s extreme social agenda. In response, some good election post-mortems have been written, and it looks like the more extreme manifestations of wokeism are already in retreat from corporate America and the universities.

Under Biden, the Democrats tried to mimic the right’s patriotism with their J6 narrative and defamatory lies about Russian collusion, but their love of country has always been ideological and conditional. This performative patriotism cannot be reconciled with their sustained criticism of America as “systemically racist.” This is why the mask slips so often, and they say things like Trump supporters are “garbage.”

The old system is exemplified by Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris: power-hungry people with only modest talents who worked their way up the ranks but proved incapable of improving anything of importance when given responsibility. They are a reminder that real talent doesn’t always climb through the ranks; it often skips over them or ignores them, sometimes creating whole new organizations.

Under Trump, instead of the “organization kid,” bold and revolutionary outsiders like Elon Musk are providing an alternate model for executive leadership.

Trump was supposed to hire a bunch of outsiders during his first term, and he even created a website to gather resumes from ordinary Americans out in flyover country. But the database and its thousands of resumes were lost, likely sabotaged. He ended up hiring insiders and opportunists provided to him by the RNC.

So far, it appears he has learned from this mistake.

Beauty, Standards, and Excellence

The Democratic Party is lately about ugliness and weirdness. It celebrates the deviant and normalizes it. This makes sense, as beauty, standards, and excellence are all related.

Trump’s team is healthy and attractive. Trump picked those whom he thinks are best for the job, often with diverse views and unorthodox paths to success. So far there is none of the “tokenism” that usually surrounds both Democratic and Republican administrations. He seems indifferent about whether his team “looks like America,” but—like his winning coalition—it will be more representative of the country as a whole than the multi-hued, ideological clones of the Biden administration.

Combined with Trump’s majority, the bold cabinet picks signal a real “vibe shift.” The moment has a revolutionary feel, much more than I expected. It is analogous to the French or, more recently, Reagan revolutions, where styles rapidly changed, along with policies and elites. Short hair and business suits were back in style during the 1980s, after a slacker, self-indulgent decade following the disorders of the 1960s.

If Trump’s support comes from those who are resentful of being ruled over by their inferiors, the left’s core consists of those who are absolutely loyal to this system that artificially elevates them to positions of power and prestige. They are loyal because they know, deep down, in any fair competition, they would lose. This is what is meant by the useful concept of “bioleninism.”

Thus, the Trump revolution is not merely a political one but a cultural and aesthetic one. Things are changing rapidly because the left has lost confidence. They can no longer claim to represent the majority or console themselves that the arc of history is bending toward their eventual triumph.

Long on nostalgia, the Make America Great Again concept is also forward-looking. This is because the greatness of America resides in its optimism, creativity, embrace of technological progress, and because the country has always welcomed and rewarded people of talent, regardless of their pedigree or background.

Even before he has taken the oath for a second time, Trump is exemplifying the MAGA spirit with his extraordinary cabinet of outsiders.

According to Gallup’s latest polling, support for a handgun ban has fallen to just 20 percent and support for an “assault weapons” ban has cratered to just 52 percent.

Gun bans were a constant call from both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the last four years.

President Biden often combined the call with dubious factual, legal, and historical arguments.

Jonathan Turley previously wrote about the failure of politicians to acknowledge the limits posed by the Second Amendment and controlling case law. While there are good-faith objections to how the Second Amendment has been interpreted, the current case law makes such bans very difficult to defend.

In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, recognizing the Second Amendment as encompassing an individual right to bear arms.

Yet, the 2024 campaign showed a belated recognition that the Administration has failed to galvanize public opinion in support of gun limits and bans.

Harris came under fire during the campaign when she suddenly seemed to embrace one of the very guns that she previously vilified as it became clear that she was too far left from much of the country.

Years ago, Turley wrote that the rise in gun ownership in the United States, including among minority gun owners, was strikingly out of sync with the Democratic talking point.

In 2019, support for an assault weapons ban stood at 61%. It is now barely at a majority.

The drop in support for a handgun ban is notable in that only 33 percent of Democrats support such a ban.

The rise in gun ownership and the drop in polling raise another issue where Democratic candidates seem to be speaking to an increasingly empty room. The gun ownership rates are a problem for the party because most political issues do not involve a large personal investment by citizens. When someone becomes a gun owner, they spend hundreds of dollars on the weapon, ammunition, and other costs. The ban campaigns become more of a personal and financial issue for them.

Harris’s attempt to appeal to gun owners fell flat after years of calling for limits and bans.

The question is whether the party is ready to pivot on this and other issues — and whether it can given its political base.

That 33 percent is the core voting block in primaries even as the rest of the country moves toward the center of the political spectrum.

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered a fiery speech where he stressed the importance of accelerating the country’s nuclear weapons program in response to Western threats.  

In the address to the North Korean Army issued days ago, Kim said, “The United States has already converted its alliance with the [South Korea] into a nuclear-based one and created an ‘Asian NATO’ in haste by cementing its military ties with Japan and South Korea.”

The North Korean leader stressed that US nuclear deployments to the region, joint war games with South Korea and Japan, and building military blocs aimed at Pyongyang are all intolerable to North Korea. 

Kim stressed the increasing threat from Washington justified accelerating Pyongyang’s nuclear program. “Long ago, the line of building up our nuclear forces became an irreversible policy, so what remains to be done now is for these forces to get more fully ready for action so that they can carry out the mission of deterring war and the second mission at any moment.”

He continued, “We will build up our nation’s self-defense forces, the pivot of which is its nuclear capability, limitlessly and endlessly without satisfaction.”

In addition to discussing North Korea’s military tensions with the US, Kim also discussed Pyongyang’s position in what he has previously described as a “new Cold War.”

“As the US and other Western countries are using Ukraine as a shock force in the war against Russia, we should view it as a maneuver to enrich their real-war experience and expand the scope of military intervention all over the world.”

He added, “By sustaining their military assistance to Ukraine and Israel…This aggravates the international security situation, stoking fears of a third world war.”

The relationship between Washington and Pyongyang has soured during the Joe Biden administration. At the end of Donald Trump’s first term, North Korea and the US were engaged in some diplomacy, and Pyongyang was largely respecting its self-imposed missile test moratorium. 

Upon resuming the presidency in 2025, Donald Trump will face an emboldened leader in North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who has not only expanded the country’s missile arsenal but also enjoys a much closer relationship with Russia https://t.co/CQypdjSqU6 pic.twitter.com/HMMWKbdT6u

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 7, 2024

However, Biden refused to engage with Kim while increasing the presence of the American military in South Korea. Combined with the administration’s efforts to bring South Korea and Japan into a military pact, Pyongyang views the Biden policy as highly aggressive. 

Kim responded by ramping up the missile tests, conducting war games near the DMZ, and strengthening Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow. 

On Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare surprise visit to the Gaza Strip, specifically to the area of the Netzarim Corridor, which runs through the center of the strip.

He was there to deliver a message, showing that Hamas does not and will not rule Gaza. He also issued a warning to those terrorists that are holding Israelis hostage, vowing that they’ll pay a heavy price.

He proclaimed that Israel Defense Forces troops in Gaza have “achieved excellent results toward our important goal — that Hamas will not rule in Gaza. We are destroying its military capabilities in a very impressive manner, and we are moving on to its ruling capabilities… Hamas will not be in Gaza.”

Israeli authorities have in recent months said that over 60 living hostages remain somewhere in Gaza, of the about 100 who were never returned.

Of these, Netanyahu said “we are not letting up” and that Israel “will continue to do so until we reach everyone — both the living and the dead.” He also at one point addressed “those who are holding our hostages,” saying that “whoever dares to harm our hostages — will bear the responsibility. We will pursue you and we will get you.”

He offered a reward of NIS 5 million (or just over $1.3 million) to anyone in Gaza who turns an Israeli captive over the Israel. It’s not the first time a monetary reward has been offered, but the money has been greatly increased with this announcement.

“I gave an order to increase the reward for those who bring information about the hostage – NIS 5 million for each hostage instead of NIS 1 million and safe passage for the informant and his family,” Netanyahu said.

The Jerusalem Post writes that “In his public comments, he stressed that Israel is willing to do small deals, by which captors would be given monetary rewards and free passage out of Gaza in exchange for releasing the hostages in their custody.”

The hope is that which such a large sum, families of Hamas members tasked with hosting and guarding hostages might come forward and free the hostages. Or else, individual Palestinians who might know where hostages are being kept might step forward with the information. It could also entice Hamas members to turn on their leadership.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, IDF chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, accompanied him during the brief tour of the central Gaza area.

“The choice is in your hands, but the result will be the same. We will bring everyone home,” Netanyahu said. During a Monday debate in the Knesset, he addressed the outrage by victims’ families over his handling of the hostage crisis. 

IDF forces fight in Notzirath, Gaza Strip pic.twitter.com/CD7WEKQEvy

— POV combat footage (@Zoma3mk) November 17, 2024

“Demonstrations by hostage families and civilian protesters inside and outside the Knesset during the debate underscored the turbulence surrounding the several dozen Israelis believed to still be alive in Gaza,” one report observed. “Multiple individuals were escorted out of the meeting due to outbursts and disruption.”

Update (5:10pm ET): Disappointing those who had hoped to see the “chopsticks” catch in action for the second time in a month, the Super Heavy booster instead splashed down in the ocean after it was deemed unsafe to attempt the remarkable midair catch today.

BREAKING: Space X Super Heavy booster makes offshore splashdown after it was deemed unsafe to attempt the “chopstick” catch. pic.twitter.com/h3kTy07mEp

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 19, 2024

To all those who bought the “No” contract on Polymarket for the chopsticks catch, congratulations on your 4x return.

Otherwise, everything was successful, and SpaceX’s gargantuan Starship rocket blasted off from South Texas in a key test attended by President-elect Donald Trump.

SpaceX’s launch system, comprised of its Super Heavy booster and Starship upper spacecraft, cleared the tower shortly after 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday, the start of a roughly hour-long planned mission to space and partially around the world.

Trump arrived at a launch viewing location with SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk at around 3 p.m. local time. Trump, wearing a blue suit and red MAGA hat, stood flanked by allies, including US Senator from Texas Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr., as the group peppered Musk with questions on how the launch works.

Trump’s appearance marks his first at a Starship launch. It follows several appearances with Musk, who has spent a significant amount of time at Mar-a-Lago, joining in on transition meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders. The billionaire, who campaigned on behalf of Trump in crucial swing state Pennsylvania, will lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity that will recommend federal spending cuts, alongside former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Starship will attempt a fiery return plunge through the atmosphere, testing out an updated heat shield to protect it during the fall. It will then try to return to an upright position before splashing down into the Indian Ocean. While most of Starship appeared to survive this process in October, parts of the vehicle appeared to burn off. However, the company was still able to splash down Starship relatively intact and upright in the ocean.

As Bloomberg notes, the company launched in the Texas afternoon, which means Starship will be landing in the ocean during the daytime. That should provide more sunlight to show how the vehicle survives its descent.

* * *

Earlier

The sixth flight test of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket is targeted to launch during a 30-minute window that opens at 5 PM EST (2100 GMT; 4 PM local Texas time). 

The next Starship test flight aims to push the envelope of Starship and booster capabilities and prepare the entire launch system for reuse. 

“Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean,” SpaceX’s website wrote. 

Elon Musk outlined Starship Flight 6’s objectives on X:

The objectives for Starship Flight 6 are:

1. Restart of Raptor engines in vacuum.
2. Daylight landing of the ship.
3. Higher peak heating (steeper) reentry.
4. Faster/harder booster catch.

There are thousands of small design changes also being tested.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2024

Musk pointed out, “Current Starship is more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V Moon rocket. Starship V3, which hopefully flies in about a year, will be 3X more powerful.”

Current Starship is more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V Moon rocket.

Starship V3, which hopefully flies in about a year, will be 3X more powerful. https://t.co/K0p8HuXH3b

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2024

Even before the two-stage megarocket — featuring the Starship spacecraft stacked atop the Super Heavy booster — launches late afternoon, prediction market platform Polymarket has allowed users to wager on whether the Mechazilla arms (or chopsticks) at the Starbase launchpad near Brownsville, Texas, will successfully catch the Starship as it returns to Earth.

Last month’s Starship Flight 5 marked a historic success.

Starship rocket booster caught by tower pic.twitter.com/aOQmSkt6YE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2024

The Polymarket bet is titled “Will the chopsticks catch SpaceX’s Super Heavy?” With about seven hours left before launch, users overwhelmingly bet confidently (about 80%) that chopsticks will successfully catch Starship. About $286k have traded on the contract so far. 

Polymarket has made betting on binary events in the news cycle possible. 

Watch the sixth Starship flight test:

Meanwhile, Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, told investors last Friday that the company plans hundreds of Starship rocket launches during President Trump’s second term.

There is a report from Politico that President-elect Trump plans to watch the Starship launch with Musk in Texas.

Authored by Ciran Lyons via CoinTelegraph.com,

Gemini exchange co-founder Tyler Winklevoss has asserted that the harm inflicted on the cryptocurrency industry by Gary Gensler, Chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is irreparable. This statement comes amid growing speculation that Gensler might step down from his position.

“Let’s all be clear on one thing. Gary Gensler is evil,” Winklevoss declared in a Nov. 15 X post.

“He should never again have a position of influence, power, or consequence,” Winklevoss added.

Winklevoss’ remarks follow growing optimism among crypto market participants that Gensler, a well-known crypto skeptic, may resign after Trump’s win in the US presidential election on Nov. 5.

Gensler’s behavior cannot be excused as “good faith,” Winkelvoss claims

Winklevoss claimed that Gensler’s behavior cannot be excused as “good faith mistakes” before arguing that it was “entirely thought out, intentional, and purposeful to fulfill his personal, political agenda at any cost.”

Source: Tyler Winklevoss

During Gensler’s time as SEC chair, crypto firms like major exchanges Binance and Coinbase, Ripple, among others, have faced ongoing legal battles from the regulator. Winklevoss argued that Gensler took the regulation-by-enforcement approach to the crypto industry, showing little regard for anyone working in the sector:

“Even if this meant nuking an industry, tens of thousands of jobs, people’s livelihoods, billions of invested capital, and more, ironically, his sociopathic ambition ended up torching his own political party.”

Echoing a similar sentiment to Winklevoss, Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin recently told Cointelegraph:

“We’ve been living in a gas-lit world for a long time, generously gas-lit by the SEC.”

Backlash toward Gensler continues to grow

MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor believes whoever takes Gensler’s job has the “most pivotal role” in the crypto industry.

“I think this is incredibly bullish for digital assets,” Saylor added.

Reuters reported on Nov. 7, citing people with knowledge of the matter, that Robinhood’s legal chief, Dan Gallagher, is currently the Trump team’s frontrunner to replace Gensler.

Meanwhile, on Nov. 14, eighteen US states filed a lawsuit against the SEC and Gensler, accusing the financial regulator of “gross government overreach” against the nascent crypto industry.

The plaintiffs include Nebraska, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa, Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, Montana and others.

Late Monday Lebanese sources had said that Hezbollah has agreed to a US-proposed ceasefire plan. But by the close of the day it became clear that Israel has yet to formally sign off. “Lebanon and Hezbollah have agreed to a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire with Israel with some comments on the content, a top Lebanese official told Reuters on Monday, describing the effort as the most serious yet to end to the fighting,” Reuters reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initial reaction was to say that Israeli will still operate militarily against Hezbollah in response to attacks, even in the scenario a ceasefire deal is reached. This seems to reflect a belief that Hezbollah won’t uphold its end of a potential ceasefire even if formally enacted.

“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Knesset. “We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks… even after a ceasefire.”

“Even if there is a paper [setting out an agreement], worthy though it may be, we will be required, in order to ensure our security in the north (of Israel), to systematically carry out operations — not only against Hezbollah’s attacks, which could come.”

He continued, “Even if there is a ceasefire, nobody can guarantee it will hold. So it’s not only our reaction, a preventive reaction, a reaction in the wake of attack, but also the capacity to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening.” Netanyahu concluded by emphasizing, “We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6, 2023.”

US special envoy Amos Hochstein is in Lebanon on Tuesday, where he’s described “very productive” meetings with top Lebanese officials. He says that a deal to end the fighting is “within our grasp”. Hochstein is expected to be in Israel by Wednesday.

Lebanese officials are now saying the ball is in Israel’s court. Currently an Israeli ground offensive is still active, and Beirut has been heavily pummeled by Israel’s aerial offensive, which has also reached into central and northeastern Lebanon of late, especially the Bekaa Valley.

But the skepticism expressed by Netanyahu is rooted in the long-running demand that Hezbollah withdraw its forces to regions north of the Litani River, in order to establish an indefinite buffer zone. Israel also wants its military to be able to patrol southern Lebanon after that point to ensure no continued missile or drone attacks on northern Israel.

⚡️More of rocket impacts in Tel Aviv pic.twitter.com/QKt8u3Uws4

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) November 18, 2024

Hezbollah has considered this demand an impossibility, and thus this week’s international reports suggesting a deal has been reached are premature. But Netanyahu has signaled he’s willing to contemplate a deal ahead of Trump entering the White House.

This is especially as the last 48 hours have seen hundreds of rockets rain down on Israeli cities, some reaching into Tel Aviv shopping districts, as Israel keeps up its devastating airstrikes.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have suddenly decided they want to be all diplomatic with president-elect Donald Trump, after openly calling him a nazi days before the election, and it has not gone down well for them at all.

The pair announced that they travelled to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with Trump, with Scarborough saying “It was the first time we have seen him in seven years,” adding “We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit.”

You were literally crying and saying Trump was a fascist nazi two weeks ago. The only time anyone sees you is on X when we’re all laughing at how F*cking crazy you sound. https://t.co/J6GqzS9BqL

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) November 18, 2024

They took a look at their tanking ratings and decided to go meet up with ‘literally Hitler’ and see if they can “restart communication.”

MSNBC ratings collapse:

Joy Reid – down 54.6%
Ari Melber – down 49.6%
Chris Hayes – down 47.2%
Alex Wagner – down 53.6%
Morning Joe – down 39.6%
Stephanie Ruhle – down 67%
Andrea Mitchell – down 39.7%

https://t.co/MwnpkM791w

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 12, 2024

Morning Joe then: Donald Trump is comparable to Adolf Hitler.

Morning Joe now: We met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to settle our differences. pic.twitter.com/UkfMt9ScuP

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 18, 2024

Suffice to say, this hasn’t played well with anyone, from Trump supporters, all the way over to shit-libs and everyone in between.

Mika & Joe’s own viewers are viscerally disgusted with them. Which is funny.

Hahahahahaaaa 🤣🤣🤣

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 18, 2024

And their own MSNBC colleagues are disgusted with them. Which is also funny.

You’re deluded.

You’re in a dying industry with a tiny and shrinking audience.

You don’t have the power to normalize or not normalize Trump.

Whatever you do doesn’t matter.

— Coddled affluent professional (@feelsdesperate) November 18, 2024

He’s been elected President twice.

He was “normalized” years ago … by the VOTERS.

You folks in the media aren’t the arbiters of what’s “normal” … WE are.https://t.co/2F04teocgf

— David X. Henry (@imau2fan) November 18, 2024

Absolutely mental leftists are disgusted with Mika & Joe for shrinking the screeching echo chamber even smaller. Which is also funny.

Fuck Joe & Mika.
Fuck Morning Joe.
And fuck MSNBC if they keep them on the fucking air.

— Jo (@JoJoFromJerz) November 18, 2024

You’re… surprised?

For 25 years I’ve been saying Scarborough is a creature free of morality or ethics. For 25 years, he’s proved me right. pic.twitter.com/jWnVjFw6B1

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 18, 2024

Even the cackling witches on The View, perhaps the most clownish ‘journalists’ out there, were laughing at Mika & Joe, with Sunny Hostin declaring they went to see Trump to “kiss his ring” commenting “they’re not journalists in the true sense.”

Sunny Hostin of The View voiced her outrage over MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, holding a meeting with Donald Trump.

“I don’t think you need to sit down for 90 minutes at Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring” pic.twitter.com/mrH8tLG53c

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 18, 2024

American Enterprise Institute’s Matthew Continetti pointed out that Joe & Mika are acting as if they went on a pilgrimage to conduct “international diplomacy.”

American Enterprise Institute’s Matthew Continetti notes that MSNBC clowns Joe & Mika are acting as if they went on a pilgrimage to conduct “international diplomacy” by pathetically grovelling up to Trump at Mar-a-Lago to “restart communications.” READ: https://t.co/s6GqsfqxGX pic.twitter.com/oTgIaSAr7s

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) November 19, 2024

Nikki Haley said of Mika & Joe that “the truth is, it’s not that they suddenly saw the light. It’s that they saw the ratings.”

“I mean, let’s be clear. They saw the ratings tank and they realized, oh, we better get on with Donald Trump or else we’re not going to have a show,” Haley asserted.

Begging Trump for their media careers is all they have left.🤣

— Gary Campbell (@souperfan2012) November 18, 2024

By far the most epic and brutal reaction, however, came from Megyn Kelly, who urged “I searched for a way to respond appropriately and I called on my 10 years as a litigator, in addition to my now 20 as a journalist, and I think I found the perfect phrase… Go fuck yourselves.”

“Go fuck yourselves, you dishonest jokes of faux journalists,” Kelly steamed, adding “What an absurd farce.”

Discussing the issue with journalist Glenn Greenwald, Kelly noted “How long have they been telling us that he’s (Trump’s) an existential threat, that he’s a Hitleresque figure, that he’s a fascist, that women will die – will die! – if he gets elected?” she seethed. “Well, they’ve done a 180. They’ve done a 180 as their ratings circle the bowl. This is so juicy.”

Greenwald declared that “Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are the most humiliating and pathetic people in all of corporate media, and I realise there’s a lot of serious contenders for that crown… Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski don’t believe in anything other than their own career, in their own ratings.”

“I never thought I’d utter these words, but I agree with Keith Olbermann. Keith Olbermann’s reaction is my reaction,” Kelly quipped.

It’s worth watching the entire segment:

There’s no doubt, we just discovered who the absolute worst people in media are.

Reports suggest that Comcast is putting MSNBC up for sale, and you can bet that these two know their days are numbered. They’ve put together a desperate exit strategy, but lets face it they’re absolutely fucked.

And it’s glorious.

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