“President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations, picking a loyal ally with little foreign policy experience to represent the U.S. at the international organization. ‘Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,’ Trump said in a statement Monday announcing his pick for the role — his first selection that will require Senate confirmation. Stefanik, 40, who serves as House Republican Conference Chair, has long been one of Trump’s most loyal allies in the House, and was among those discussed as a potential vice presidential choice. She will be thrown into the world body’s deep divisions from the wars in the Mideast and Ukraine to reining in nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran.” (11/11/24)
“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. … 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.” (11/11/24)
“As shocking as it was, there was also something about last week’s election that felt sickeningly obvious and familiar, like a violent flare-up of a chronic malaise that has plagued our reality for more than a year now. On a certain level, that is to say, watching Kamala Harris lose felt like watching the latest installment in a great Oligarch Purge that started last October and swallowed everyone from Hollywood actresses to an NFL coach to a volunteer Santa Claus who pushed back too aggressively on a Likudnik rabbi’s talking points in a Hamptons community forum on the history of Israel and Palestine. Many of the purge’s casualties were honorable Americans whose revulsion toward the genocide of the Palestinian people had professional costs.” [editor’s note: I guess this pundit thinks “cabal” is defined as “self-destructive idiocy” – SAT] (11/11/24)
“The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, ‘I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.’ Those words came to mind as leading scientific and media figures lost any semblance of restraint or neutrality in bemoaning the results of the presidential election. After regaining their composure, the public was told to ignore what they had just seen. It was not surprising that the sweeping Trump victory last week produced near hysteria among some Harris supporters from women pledging to break up with men to others cutting off their hair to those pledging to flee the country (including one curiously announcing that he was ‘leaving the United States’ for Hawaii).” (11/10/24)
“It started as a social media quest for breakfast dumplings, but ended with thousands of cyclists bringing traffic gridlock between two cities in central China. What should have been a boost to the ancient city of Kaifeng’s economy backfired when the trend went viral — tens of thousands on rented bikes cycled through the night from nearby Zhenghou. A six-lane expressway between the two cities quickly filled with cyclists as police took to loudspeakers urging them to leave. Bike rental firms warned they would remotely lock bikes taken out of Zhengzhou. The event is part of a trend where young Chinese are travelling cheaply at a time when the economy is faltering and job prospects are scarce. It began with four university students who cycled for 50km (30 miles) from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng in June to try guantangbao, a type of soup dumpling.” (11/11/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“That’s all anyone should talk about when this psychopath finally dies. Anything positive he may have accomplished in his political career is a drop in the ocean compared to the significance of these mass-scale abuses. Biden spent his entire career promoting war and militarism at every opportunity, and then spent the twilight years of his time in Washington choosing to continue supplying an active genocide that is fully dependent on US-supplied arms. He refused off-ramp after off-ramp to the horrific war in Ukraine that has burned through a generation of men in that country, which he knowingly provoked by amassing a military proxy threat on Russia’s border in ways the US would never tolerate being amassed on its own border.” (11/11/24)
“A Church of England bishop has called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, calling his position ‘untenable’ after a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church. Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley is the most senior member of the Church to call on the Most Reverend Justin Welby to stand down, following the ‘horrific, horrendous and shocking’ report. Mr Welby is facing mounting pressure to resign after it emerged last week that he did not follow up rigorously enough on reports of John Smyth QC’s ‘abhorrent’ abuse of more than 100 boys and young men. A review of the Church’s handling of Smyth’s case said the archbishop ‘could and should’ have reported the case to authorities when details were presented to him in 2013.” (11/11/24)
“Although Kamala Harris failed her bid for the U.S. presidency spectacularly on Tuesday, the biggest losers of the 2024 election were the Obamas. No one has had more influence on the Democrat Party in the last decade than the Obamas. The Democrat Party used to be a place working-class Americans called home. It was sympathetic to kitchen-table issues such as how soaring crime and food and gas prices affected ordinary Americans’ quality of life. But under President Obama’s leadership, the Democrat Party has been transformed into one dominated by what I refer to as ‘liberal coastal elites.’ These are individuals who reside in affluent coastal areas, often with leftist political views, and have embraced most radical left-wing social and economic policies.” (11/11/24)
“A gut punch for most defendants, Donald Trump turned his criminal conviction into a rallying cry. His supporters put ‘I’m Voting for the Felon’ on T-shirts, hats and lawn signs. ‘The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people,’ Trump proclaimed after his conviction in New York last spring on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Now, just a week after Trump’s resounding election victory, a Manhattan judge is poised to decide whether to uphold the hush money verdict or dismiss it because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution. Judge Juan M. Merchan has said he will issue a written opinion Tuesday on Trump’s request to toss his conviction and either order a new trial or dismiss the indictment entirely.” (11/11/24)
“A Spirit Airlines plane was raked with gunfire and hit multiple times as it was trying to land in Haiti Monday — leaving at least one flight attendant wounded. The ordeal unfolded at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, the Miami Herald reported, citing sources. The flight attendant was grazed by a bullet when the gunfire erupted. Multiple bullet holes could be seen in the overhead bins and a plane door in the aftermath, footage obtained by local outlet Media Libre Haiti showed. The plane, which was en route from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., had to be diverted to an airport in the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, all other commercial flights were grounded at the Haiti airport. The incident unfolded just two weeks after the airline temporarily suspended its flights to Haiti’s capital after gang members opened fire and struck a United Nations’ helicopter flying nearby.” (11/11/24)
