Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The governors of Illinois and Colorado, both Democrats, have announced the formation of a new alliance to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s policies, just weeks before he is set to assume office.

The alliance, named “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” (GSD), is being billed as a nonpartisan coalition of governors who will work together to prevent “authoritarianism” and the “undermining of democratic institutions,” including executive agencies, elections, and state courts, according to a Nov. 13 statement announcing the group.

Through the group, governors will leverage their “unique legislative, budgetary, executive, and administrative powers to deliver results for the American people,” the statement said.

The alliance will also develop “playbooks” to enable governors and their teams to “anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats,” according to the statement. The group did not specify what those threats were.

Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado launched the group and will act as co-chairs overseeing the coalition. The group will be supported by a network of senior staff designated by each governor.

Democrats currently govern 23 states while Republicans govern 27. Neither Polis nor Pritzker said how many governors have joined the coalition so far.

A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, Karoline Leavitt, said in response to the group’s formation that the president-elect “will serve all Americans, even those who did not vote for him in the election.”

“He will unify the country through success,” Leavitt said.

The coalition says it will be supported by the Governors Action Alliance (GovAct), a nonpartisan organization that will collaborate with think tanks, legal experts, and democracy advocates to tackle the “unique challenges facing American democracy today,” according to the statement.

According to its official website, GovAct is advised by a board that includes former Republican and Democratic governors from states such as Minnesota and Massachusetts, as well as a former deputy attorney general.

Specifics regarding how exactly the alliance would function were not provided.

In a statement, Pritzker said the alliance was formed amid a “critical moment in our history … to protect the foundations of our democracy and ensure our institutions withstand threats and persevere in their mission to improve the lives of our people.”

Trump, who campaigned on proposals including deporting illegal immigrants and imposing tariffs, scored a decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in last week’s election.

The alliance was unveiled as multiple leaders from the Democratic Party vowed to uphold various policies related to access to abortion, climate, diversity programs, and LGBT issues following the former president’s election win.

On Nov. 7, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to convene a special session later this year to address Trump policies, which he said threaten the state’s values.

According to a statement from Newsom’s office, the special session will respond to public statements and proposals put forward by Trump and his advisers, as well as actions taken during his previous time in office, which the statement described as “an agenda that could erode essential freedoms and individual rights, including women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.”

The special session will begin on Dec. 2, when the Legislature convenes.

Last week, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said that his legal team had been preparing for months to respond to future Trump policies, while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is working with her attorney general on how to “protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was Harris’s running mate in the recent presidential election, told supporters during a Nov. 8 speech in Eagan, Minnesota, that he would “stand ready to stand up and fight” if the incoming Trump administration brings a “hateful agenda” to the state.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Prospective homebuyers in Manhattan were sidelined last month as the rate on a 30-year mortgage topped 7%. As a result, rents in the borough rose to three-month highs due to sliding housing affordability.

Bloomberg cited new data from brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate and appraiser Miller Samuel that showed the median Manhattan apartment rent climbed 2.4% from a year earlier to $4,295. This was the first annual gain since April.

In other surrounding boroughs, new leases signed in Brooklyn last month averaged around $3,600, up 3.2% from a year earlier. In northwest Queens, median rents were up nearly 5% to $3,350.

In recent weeks, the US 10-year Treasury bond yield, which lenders use as a guide to price home loans, jumped in anticipation of a Trump win. Yields soared even after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate. This is mostly because traders forecasted elevated inflation under the Trump administration. 

Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, noted that lower mortgage rates lured some renters to purchase homes before the presidential election. However, he noted that rents started to re-accelerate as soon as mortgage rates bottomed in late September and surged through October. He added that a 30-year mortgage rate over 7% has pressured rents higher. 

“Rents tend to follow mortgage rates,” Miller said, adding, “The higher the mortgage rate, the higher rent.”

Miller said newly signed leases jumped 24% last month compared to one year ago. He noted that higher rates have sparked a surge in activity this fall. 

“Mortgage rates still aren’t coming down,” Miller said, pointing out, “Economic policy would not seem to suggest that mortgage rates will fall significantly. If anything, rents will stay where they are, or rise, moving forward.”

Authored by Neel Brown via RealClearPolitics,

As Americans voted decisively for a candidate who explicitly rejects nearly everything that Bernie Sanders advocates, Vermont’s senior senator insists that the Democratic Party just wasn’t liberal enough. The mindset of the far left seems to be that the working class just needs more of what they just voted against. For Bernie, the answer is always, “more cowbell.”

Four years ago, the United States elected “Scranton Joe,” a pragmatic with a long record of achievement in the Senate and the Obama administration attained through compromise and common sense. On economic issues, Joe Biden presented himself as a pro-energy, pro-growth, pro-worker – old-school Democrat. He made a point of eschewing the left’s “defund the police” fever and ended his speeches by saying, “May God bless our troops.” Americans were yearning for what he offered and elected him as a serious and pragmatic alternative to a chaotic Trump.

Then came the Elizabeth Warren camp. From day one, the Biden administration was flooded with operatives from the Bernie/Liz left wing of the Democratic Party. What ensued was an overt shift from Scranton Joe’s campaign promises to policies for and by the liberal elite. Like those annoying clothing labels that are itchy and unnecessary, the Sanders/Warren brand was sewn into nearly every policy that came out of the White House.

On energy issues, Biden delivered on his campaign promise for an all-of-the-above energy strategy. He passed the boldest and most comprehensive green energy investment in U.S. history while governing over record domestic energy production that literally saved Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Instead of championing Biden’s successes, the far left hatched a plan to end future build-outs of liquified natural gas facilities. This policy sent the wrong message to our allies around the world, and was a betrayal of the tens of thousands of energy workers in Pennsylvania. Additionally, this policy likely increased global carbon emissions by prolonging coal burning and increasing demand for LNG from dirtier sources. This pandering to the left crippled the Harris campaign in the must-win state of Pennsylvania.

The massive drive for student debt relief is another example of how the left wing of the party is out of touch with working-class Americans. By sending out over $400 billion dollars to college graduates, the non-college, working-class Americans received a clear message: “Democrats believe that contributions to society by the college educated are more important than mine.”

As inflation eroded their spending power, these workers didn’t get tens of thousands of dollars, but they watched other, many fewer, and more privileged Americans cash those checks. The worst part of this policy is that most recipients of this relief still have debts, and there was no reform of the American higher education system to lower future tuition rates. Instead, it provided incentives for universities to raise tuition even higher – even though the cost of higher education has far outpaced overall inflation for a generation.

The broad anti-business rhetoric from the Bernie/Warren camp is out of step with the everyday needs and struggles of Americans. There are a host of long-standing “paychecks and pocketbooks” issues that the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice could have addressed during the Biden administration. These include serious competition problems in some food and agriculture and healthcare markets that drive up prices for consumers – often forcing them to make decisions about what bills to pay, or not. Biden’s FTC and DOJ instead focused enormous, limited public resources on the tech companies where any competition problems are far more remotely connected to consumers. Perversely, working-class Americans don’t have a litany of complaints about tech companies, and the problems that the FTC and DOJ pursued have very little effect on household budgets.

Finally, Biden’s paralysis on the border and immigration policy was a critical part of Kamala Harris’ defeat this year. At the eleventh hour, as the campaign for president was already underway, they finally got serious about an immigration reform bill. It was too late. The far left’s unbending refusal to even acknowledge the crisis at the border crippled any chances of meaningful legislation when it could have made a difference. The end result of the left’s steadfast denialism of the problem is likely to be a Trump administration policy that is draconian and un-American.

Bernie Sanders is right about one thing: The Democratic Party has abandoned the working class. But not in the ways that he thinks. The party has bent to the pressure from the most ideological activists while simultaneously failing to take credit for the huge successes achieved in the center of the political spectrum. The moralistic preaching from the far left on what the working class needs, even while those voters overtly reject it, is akin to the incessant ringing of the cowbell when we’ve already had enough.

We must re-center the Democratic Party. We must listen to Americans and fashion policies that reflect an understanding of what they need and want. We cannot bend further to the left’s delusional insistence that the working class “just don’t know what’s best for them.”

Neel Brown is managing director at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Authored by Adam Dick via the Ron Paul Institute,

The released photos documenting torture of prisoners at the United States government’s Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the Iraq War disgusted many people who could look beyond the war propaganda to feel sympathy for their fellow human beings.

Even if it was assumed that all the people pictured in the midst of their torture were themselves guilty of heinous crimes — an assumption that lacked foundation, the torture was a breach of civilized behavior.

Two decades later, some accountability has been meted out by a jury in Alexandria, Virginia.

The jury decided Tuesday that the military contractor CACI Premier Technology Inc. is liable to pay a total of 42 million dollars in damages to Suhail Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili, and Asa’ad Zuba’e — three former detainees at Abu Ghraib in the 2003 through 2004 time period who had brought a lawsuit against the company whose employees worked as interrogators at the prison.

Reporting at the Associated Press on the jury’s decision, Matthew Barakat wrote:

The $42 million fully matches the amount sought by the plaintiffs, [Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy] said. It’s also more than the $31 million that the plaintiffs said CACI was paid to supply interrogators to Abu Ghraib.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which aided the plaintiffs who won the case, indicated in a press release regarding the jury’s award of damages that the outcome of the case suggests liability may be imposed on other companies as well for US government torture activities:

The first case of its kind to make it to trial, Al Shimari, et al. v. CACI delivers a rare measure of justice to survivors of the U.S. government’s post-9/11 torture regime, which extended from Guantanamo to Iraq and Afghanistan to secret prisons around the world. It also brings a new degree of accountability to the shadowy realm of security contractors at a time when employees of private companies, integral to the U.S. “war on terror,” have often been implicated in human rights abuses across the globe. 

According to more from the statement: “The jury found CACI liable for conspiring to torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Suhail Al Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa’ad Zuba’e, a fruit vendor, and Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist. The men were all held at the ‘hard site,’ the part of the prison where the most severe abuses occurred. Along with hundreds of other Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib, they have suffered long-standing physical and emotional effects.”

Photo from November 2003 shows a prisoner being tortured at Abu Ghraib Prison by US forces. The prisoner had electric wires attached to him and faced the threat of electrocution if he fell off the box. pic.twitter.com/Grg2BjXGSQ

— Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) October 1, 2024

Still, the primary torture culprit — the US government and its employees — continues to evade liability for its activities at Abu Ghraib and other torture sites around the world.

Update: 

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

*   *   *

As President-elect Donald Trump selects Cabinet appointees for his second term, attention has turned to where Robert F. Kennedy Jr., leader of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, might be placed—potentially in agencies overseeing food or health policies.

In the days before the presidential election, RFK Jr. published a short video on X indicating that when Trump “gets me inside” the United States Department of Agriculture, “we’re going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms.” 

When @realDonaldTrump gets me inside the USDA, we’re going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms.

If you want this to happen as much as I do, ​PLEASE DONATE TODAY ➡️ https://t.co/YxxGkb2Ulq pic.twitter.com/npo6ZEiIo6

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 30, 2024

In other words, RFK Jr. and the MAHA team will ensure that small farms are made great again by directing policies to focus on traditional agriculture.

The Trump victory signals that Americans want to drain the DC swamp and improve their health—if that’s through busting up the corruption in the USDA and FDA. The MAHA movement ensures that small farms will be prioritized over mega-corporate farms. 

RFK Jr.’s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan, provided more color in a recent interview about some of the MAHA plans:

“We’re definitely up against a lot, between what I call the real food movement and the fake food movement, and really what belies these two movements is a population of people who don’t need to spend an enormous amount of money on healthcare services, that are healthy, that are vibrant … and then belying the fake food movement is very, very wealthy corporations that are going to have an endless patient pool, and are going to have a consumer base that actually is physically addicted to some of these products.

And then also, an entire psychology around it that has people believing that they’re sacrificing themselves for the greater good … we saw it play out in the delivery of the Covid vaccines.”

Shanahan continued:

“This is where I want to make the investments in our country. I want to create an entire – I want to bring back the infrastructure that allowed small and mid-size growers to be able to produce, and process, and package, and distribute locally, because that has all been taken away for the most part – it’s why it’s impossible economically for small growers to make a profit today.”  

Earlier in the interview, she noted:

“I’ve been a producer on a few of these regenerative agriculture films, and the biggest pushback we’ve ever gotten [was] from the artificial meat investors.

Nice Shanahan: The movement for real food is “up against A LOT”

“I want to bring BACK the infrastructure that allowed small and mid-size growers to be able to produce, and process, and package, and distribute locally, because that has all been taken away.”

“I’ve been a producer… pic.twitter.com/iDxGKduFhc

— American Values 🗽 (@AV24org) November 14, 2024

Bold vision: Go long small farms? Go short, fake meat?

Authored by Eric Lendrum via American Greatness,

Rachel Zegler, the scandal-plagued star of Disney’s upcoming live-action “Snow White” remake, has once again found herself embroiled in controversy, this time for her numerous attacks against supporters of President-elect Donald Trump.

As reported by Breitbart, the 23-year-old actress posted a series of raving rants on her Instagram stories attacking the 45th and 47th President, as well as all of his supporters.

“I find myself speechless in the midst of this,” said Zegler.

“Another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in. May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”

She went on to say that she considers Trump supporters to be a “deep, deep sickness in this country,” and that she believes “there is no help, no counsel, in any of them.”

After a plea with her followers to delete their X accounts out of protest of Elon Musk, who supported President Trump’s campaign, she concluded by simply saying “F**k Donald Trump.”

Zegler has earned a reputation as a gaffe-prone and volatile actress. In 2023, she went viral for unhinged remarks she made during a red carpet appearance in which she repeatedly criticized the original “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” accusing the 1937 classic of being out-of-date, sexist, and “weird.”

She also openly suggested that her co-star Andrew Burnap, who plays the Prince Charming character, could be “cut from the film” entirely, smugly remarking “it’s Hollywood, baby.”

Her comments ignited widespread backlash on social media, with Disney scrambling to retrain the actress on what to say and not to say in public appearances regarding the film. Zegler subsequently began taking a much more deferential tone towards the original film in later interviews, but the damage had been done. The film, originally scheduled to be released in 2024, was delayed back to 2025. With a production budget of over $200 million, the film may have to earn as much as $600 million just to break even, which may be impossible due to the growing online campaign to boycott the film due to Zegler’s remarks.

The film also faced controversy for its decision to completely remove the Seven Dwarves themselves. After actor Peter Dinklage, himself a midget, claimed that the dwarf characters were examples of bigotry, Disney decided to initially replace the dwarves with seven generic characters of various races and genders. When a leaked photo of the seven non-dwarf characters went viral, mockery and criticism on social media led to Disney again revamping the film and moving forward with seven computer-generated dwarves. Both the film and Dinklage have since come under fire from fans and numerous other dwarf actors, who feel that the film would have provided an opportunity for multiple dwarf actors to star as the iconic characters.

(Update 2020ET): Just when you thought the least funny website on the planet, The Onion, had prevailed in the Infowars auction, the judge in the case put the brakes on the sale after it was revealed that the (anti-Jones) bankruptcy trustee did not accept the highest bid, and instead allowed the Sandy Hook families to ‘assist’ by pledging their massive judgement towards the auction – which Jones says is illegal.

Jones explains it in 10 minutes:

Legal Bombshell: Judge Blocks Sale Of InfoWars, Slams How Auction Was Conducted! Alex Jones Reveals Shocking Details

Follow us @AJNlive pic.twitter.com/Vc9X8OwJmW

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) November 15, 2024

According to Jones, there should be some sort of a hearing to discuss this early next week. He believes that the judge is likely to order a new auction for sometime in January, where a Jones-allied group will have the opportunity to buy the company without the trustee picking their own winner regardless of actual bid.

The saga continues…

*  *  *

(Update 1130ET): Hours after yesterday’s auction, Infowars.com is now down. We wish Alex Jones well on his next endeavor, which we’re guessing is going to be massive.

pic.twitter.com/H9pBclnikh

— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) November 14, 2024

According to Jones, a lower bid was accepted.

🚨 Alex Jones confirms that the highest bid for InfoWars at the Federal Auction was not accepted and they chose the lower bid from The Onion instead, likely to make sure he wouldn’t retain control. This shows it’s not about helping the Sandy Hook families, it’s about punishment. pic.twitter.com/ADZx0xfuPR

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) November 14, 2024

*  *  *

The leftist-satirical rag The Onion announced on Thursday that it had won a bankruptcy auction to acquire Infowars – the website founded and operated by Alex Jones since 1999.

On Wednesday, Jones said that the auction’s trustee could choose any bidder it wanted – not necessarily the high bidder. Jones announced the sale on X Thursday morning.

“I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning,” he said. “The Connecticut democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us.“

Infowars is being shut down now! pic.twitter.com/nb4loGvL12

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) November 14, 2024

The Onion told the NY Times that the bid was sanctioned by the families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones.

The Onion did not disclose the price it paid for Infowars and its assets, including Jones’ production studio and supplement business.

Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion parent company, Global Tetrahedron, says he plans to relaunch Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities.”

In a not-funny post, The Onion wrote:

What’s next for InfoWars remains a live issue. The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.

As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.

After Infowars is raped and rebooted, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety says it plans to advertise on it. Collins declined to disclose the value of said advertising deal, but that it was a multiyear agreement that would include banner ads and sponsored articles on the site.

BREAKING: Democrats Are On Their Way To The Building To Shut InfoWars Down Now– Alex Jones Explains The Future of InfoWars In This Critical Emergency Broadcast https://t.co/eBE30t4Gf6

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) November 14, 2024

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, told the NY Times, “This was an opportunity for us to give The Onion the facts, the storytelling, the data and the research that’s at our fingertips,” adding “And for them to give us the creativity of how to turn all of that information into new messaging to a new audience.”

Collins said that the relaunched Infowars might publish its own satirical stories focusing on gun violence.

Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said in a statement that taking possession of Infowars amounted to accountability for “Alex Jones and his corrupt business.”

“By divesting Jones of Infowars’ assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones’s ability to do more harm,” said Mattei.

According to the NYT, “The plan is to relaunch it next year with an approach reminiscent of Clickhole, The Onion’s sister site that poked fun at “listicles” from BuzzFeed and other purveyors of viral content.”

Relying solely on Social Security for retirement, especially as a married couple, may need a serious second look. New findings from GOBankingRates reveal that in 50 major U.S. cities, Social Security income won’t even cover a full month’s expenses. At best, these benefits might last up to 19 days, but in six of these cities, they fall short in under 10 days.

GOBankingRates conducted an analysis of the 100 largest U.S. cities by population, using the average Social Security benefits for married couples to assess how far this income stretches when set against living costs.

The recent study reveals that in many U.S. cities, Social Security benefits fall far short of covering even half a month’s living expenses for married retirees. In particular, six major cities—including Irvine, Fremont, San Jose, San Francisco, Honolulu, and San Diego—offer the briefest financial coverage from Social Security, with benefits lasting between just 6.73 and 9.59 days, according to GoBankingRates.com.

Irvine, California, stands out as the city where benefits stretch the least, covering under a week’s worth of expenses, with a monthly cost of living that exceeds $9,700 for a couple.

The findings show that California is a challenging state for retirees relying on Social Security alone, with 15 of its cities appearing in the top 50 cities where benefits last the shortest.

Within the top 10 cities with the shortest Social Security coverage, California holds seven spots, underscoring the high cost of living in the state. While Irvine ranks as the most expensive, Stockton, California, provides the most days of coverage in the state at nearly 18 days—though even this is well below a full month.

At the other end of the spectrum, Saint Petersburg, Florida, ranks as the city where Social Security lasts the longest among the 50 cities analyzed, stretching to 19.38 days for married couples. This reflects the lower cost of living in Saint Petersburg, where expenses amount to $1,584 monthly.

Florida’s comparatively affordable living costs mean that, while Social Security coverage still falls short of a full month, retirees may face less financial strain.

The GoBankingRates.com study showed that beyond California and Florida, cities like Arlington, Virginia, and Seattle also show limited Social Security coverage, lasting only around 10 to 11 days. Arlington, with a monthly cost of $5,307, and Seattle, at $4,733, both represent high-cost areas where retirees might struggle to maintain financial stability on Social Security alone.

Honolulu is the sole representative from Hawaii in the top six, where the high cost of living cuts Social Security coverage to just over 8 days.

The study’s detailed breakdown shows a significant disparity between cities, where monthly costs range from $9,794 in Irvine to $1,584 in Saint Petersburg. Even cities with more affordable housing and expenses, such as Gilbert, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, provide just around 16 days of coverage, demonstrating that even in lower-cost cities, retirees would need supplementary income to cover basic living expenses each month.

Ultimately, the findings illustrate the pressing financial challenge facing retirees in urban areas across the United States. With the cost of living continually rising, retirees must consider alternative income sources or substantial savings to bridge the gap left by Social Security benefits, especially in cities where expenses drastically outpace what Social Security provides.

You can view the study’s methodology and full results here. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In an hilarious parody ad that is going viral, a fictional company called ‘Don’t Cry Cryo’ is offering to cryogenically freeze panicking leftists who can’t cope with president Trump’s election victory and wake them up after it’s all over.

The AI created ad, produced by Newzy, asks “are you distraught by the recent presidential election?” and offers to help, announcing “our expert team of cryogenic care providers can cryogenically freeze you until the Trump presidency is over.”

“No more crying, no more anxiety attacks, just blissful sleep until Trump is gone,” the ad further promises,” adding “it will be like his presidency never even happened.”

They even offer a JD Vance add on package!

There are more twists and turns in the ad, but we won’t give it all away.

Enjoy!

Don’t Cry, Cryo! 😂 Need a Break from Trump’s Term? Freeze Yourself for 4 Years! #Trump #ElonMusk #meltdowns pic.twitter.com/pEZXc0Hdqw

— newzy.com (@realnewzy) November 13, 2024

Who do you know that could use this service? @TheView @VP @jimmykimmel @HowardStern @Oprah ?

— newzy.com (@realnewzy) November 13, 2024

Lets send this supernova.

Super Bowl ad winner 😂

— 💪Make Men Again💪 (@southofcolumbia) November 14, 2024

And give Newzy a follow, they deserve it for this!

All of Hollywood and the media should be mandate to enroll in this.

— Bjl (@Bjl1044341) November 14, 2024

You legitimately won the internet today! Epic.

— Lying Liars Lying (@LyingLiars96) November 14, 2024

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

– Often attributed to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand

The Democratic election postmortem immediately descended into public blame-gaming – as expected. When Joe Biden was forced off the ticket in late July, the conspirators issued a party line that he was to be praised as a veritable George Washington — in the spirit of Washington’s farewell address of 1796 about why it was a good thing for the first president not to run for a third term.

So, we were lied to that Joe, the sitting President of the United States, was not forced out by Nancy Pelosi, the Obamas, George Clooney and the celebs, and the billionaire class. We instead were lectured that Biden, magnanimously as the neo-father of our country, selflessly bowed out to ensure Kamala Harris’s elevation as the nominee and, with it, a sure Democratic victory.

But now?

After the Democratic train wreck, half the party is suddenly damning George Washington Joe for sticking around too long, even though party grandees cooked up the scheme in the first place of nominating the cognitively challenged Biden in 2020 to shut out his radical (and supposedly unelectable) primary rivals.

Now that his successor Harris has bombed, in the leftist mind, Joe has gone from a Washingtonian Olympian to a veritable selfish Richard Nixon who clung to office far too long and supposedly ensured his party’s defeat.

Yet still, others now blame incumbent Vice President Kamala herself. The once “joyful” candidate, after the coup to remove Biden, was once praised to the skies as a “turn the page”/”move forward”/“change” candidate — only then to be damned as an insipid loser.

So, one postelection narrative was that Harris — we were told to recall — was always known as inept and thus originally picked as Joe Biden’s Spiro Agnew insurance policy, who would prevent his indictment, impeachment, or medical removal.

But never mind blaming either Biden or Harris or both.

The left cannot fault either a lack of funds; they raised a billion dollars more than Trump. Leftists also cannot complain about 95 percent favorable media coverage, supposedly worth billions of dollars in free advertising.

They cannot regret that they did not do everything imaginable to destroy the Trump monster — given they had impeached him twice and tried him as a private citizen. They cooked up the Russian collusion and laptop disinformation hoaxes, raided his home with a SWAT team, and unleashed five criminal and civil suits designed to bankrupt, demonize, and jail him. They tried to remove him from at least 16 state ballots and daily smeared him as a fascist, dictator, and Hitler — even as two would-be assassins tried to shoot him.

So, we are witnessing the rich Democrat-media fusion blame and fault everything but themselves. In truth, whether Biden or Harris ran — it never really mattered.

Even an open convention with a “moderate” veneer nominee like a Josh Shapiro would not have saved them. The fault was in themselves: a radical Democratic agenda actualized by Joe Biden, who will leave office with an approval rate under 40 percent, and two-thirds of the country believing the country was headed in the wrong direction under his tenure.

So, what lost the election for the Democrats? Both substance and style.

The proverbial people may have agreed that Trump was sometimes crude, but they knew in his prior four-year tenure that food, gas, rent, power, and insurance were affordable.

The border was finally secured. Trump did not welcome in 12 million unaudited illegal aliens.

Nor did he oversee a disastrous flight from Afghanistan or watch two theater-wide wars blow up Ukraine and the Middle East as a derelict America became irrelevant.

Boys did not spike volleyballs down upon the heads of girls nor did male boxers pound the brains of women.

Nor did teenage biological males shower with young girls.

Nor did the Trump tenure witness institutionalized anti-Semitism spreading throughout the nation’s elite campuses and onto the streets.

Nor did Republican party grandees obsess on race, promote reparations, demand unlimited abortions until the moment of birth, or trash fracking.

So, the message — not just the messengers — was toxic. But that said, the message was also delivered by a bicoastal elite, exuding hubris and superciliousness. This election, the left committed the two cardinal sins of American politics: one, never talk down to the American people as too stupid to appreciate the wisdom of their supposed elite betters; and two, never abandon the upwardly mobile aspirations and real struggles of the middle class.

Instead, during the campaign and after the election slaughter, Democratic grandees screamed against a supposedly racist, sexist, homophobic, nativist electorate — as if these critics were a mummified Hillary Clinton circa 2016 still pontificating about the deplorables and irredeemables or a calcified Obama lecturing on the pathologies of the clingers.

Indeed, the epitome of such hypocrisy was the late entrance of the now-plutocratic Obamas. The pair variously private jetted in from one of their four mansions to “save” Harris from her incompetent self by diagnosing the skeptics of her hard-left message as ignorant, illiberal, and suffering from Marxist false consciousness.

Thus, a week after the election, Democrats are still trapped in La La Land.

Blue-state governors now posture and brag that they will stop the newly elected Trump — but from what exactly? Will they refuse his tainted federal funds? Spit at him when they ask for disaster relief help? Declare blue America “sanctuary states” that will nullify federal law and not pay federal taxes?

What does California governor Gavin Newsom mean by calling to session the California legislature to “resist” Trump? Will he order another Steele dossier pee-pee tape? Another Hillary Clinton 2016 call to join La Résistance?

What does Illinois Governor Pritzker mean by warning Trump he will have to go through the ample governor to get to “his people?”

Coordinate more local and state prosecutors to resume where Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Letitia James left off?

Mimic Madonna and threaten to blow up the White House?

Emulate Kamala Harris and warn weeks of violent protests that won’t and should not stop?

So how exactly is the elected president actually stripping away the rights of their liberal residents — three months before he even sets foot in office? And what might such illiberal or extralegal Trump efforts entail?

Find another Andrew McCabe to weaponize the FBI to go after his enemies?

Discover another Anthony Fauci to stealthily send American cash to a leaky Chinese virology lab run by the People’s Liberation Army?

Draft another Lois Lerner to politicize the IRS to deny left-wing groups nonprofit status?

Rehire James Comey to get the FBI and social media together to censor the news?

Maybe rehire Loretta Lynch or Merrick Garland to sic the Department of Justice on political enemies at school board meetings?

Bring back Confederate-style nullification of federal law and open the border?

Or are Trump’s threats likely to be more existential and cosmic — like packing the court to ensure another six conservative justices?

Or, as the right takes control of the Senate, will the damnable new conservative majority abolish the ancient filibuster?

Perhaps the left is worried that now that a vengeful Trump has handily won the popular vote, he will most likely remove the 237-year-old Electoral College by sidestepping the constitutional amendment process?

Or will a dastardly Trump bifurcate some blue states to ensure their red halves become two new states and with them four conservative senators?

In sum, the left will not recover by blaming the American people and the voters for their loss. Nor will they regain power by caricaturing the supposedly illiberal and unappreciative middle class.

Nor will they reboot by blustering that they are at war with a president before he takes office as if he was not just elected by a clear majority and an overwhelming electoral college vote.

Nor will they find salvation today by blaming the “messaging,” or tomorrow Kamala Harris, or next week Joe Biden — rather than looking in the mirror and acknowledging the fault, Dear Democrats, is “in ourselves.”