Top-level US officials make secret visit to Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky |

 Speaking to the people who sneaked out of Afghanistan in the dead of night...

'You can't come to us empty-handed today': Zelensky tells Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin in visit to Ukraine that he needs 'specific weapons' from the US; Daily Mail Online

"The U.S. secretaries of state and defense are making a secret visit to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky as he calls for more powerful weapons to fight Russian forces.

"Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin met with Zelensky in Ukraine on Sunday - 13 days after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won plaudits for flying to the war-torn nation and walking the streets of Kyiv with Zelensky.

"Joe Biden has made no such-attempt to show solidarity with his own in-person visit, and his press secretary Jen Psaki has said there are no plans for the 79-year-old to travel there. 

"Zelensky said he was looking for the Americans to produce results, both in arms and security guarantees. 

' 'You can't come to us empty-handed today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,' he said before the arrival of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

"Sunday night's meeting marks the highest-level visit to the war-torn country's capital by an American delegation since the start of Russia's invasion.". . .

Next: A touch of irony, don't you think?

Kyiv keeps supply chains open amid defense (kyivindependent.com)

Liberal Corporations Are Confused and Scared Because Conservatives Now Fight Back

 

Liberal Corporations Are Confused and Scared Because Conservatives Now Fight Back (townhall.com)  I"t’s always fun when progressive jerks try to leverage their bizarre perceptions of our beliefs to get us to do what they want. It can be some smug Twitter blue check informing us that “Actually Jesus was a socialist who would want us to cancel student debt for spoiled rich kids who got degrees in Transgender Visual Arts” or, more recently, some newly-minted Milton Friedman acolyte goofsplaining that we must submit to the skeevy whims of California corporations and accept the imposition of grooming mandates because, after all, they are private businesses. And sometimes it works, even on alleged conservatives – David French has made whatever passes for his C-list career out of striving to twist conservatism to conform to his lib masters’ version of it. 

"But this cheesy ploy is not working anymore, at least not on the rest of us. 

"Ron DeSantis, the Scourge of Odd sitting on his growing throne o’ skulls in Tallahassee, is fresh from laughing off the howls of broken libs enraged that he gerrymandered them in Florida like they gerrymandered us in New York and Illinois. Ron is not one for accepting two sets of rules, one for the ruling caste and another, crappier one for us peasants. He identifies the applicable rule, and applies it good and hard. It’s about time the left learns that norm-breaking has consequences. And one consequence is frequent broken-norm suppositories. 

"Disney found out the hard way for the same reason as other woke corporations will. These CEOs, who appear to be ruthless robber barons in business, encounter a bunch of their own blue-haired, pierced subordinates who think a penis is irrelevant to determining their gender and suddenly these executives roll-over and give it up so cravenly that even Mitt Romney would look at them and mutter “Get a spine!' ”. . .

Former McDonald’s CEO Organizes “The Boardroom Initiative” to Fight Woke Corporations (legalinsurrection.com)

“Corporations have no business being on the right or the left because they represent everybody there and their sole job is to build equity for their investors”

Franklin Graham Fires: Disney Corporate Leadership’s Morals Are ‘In The Gutter’ | The Daily Wire

Has Woke Worn Out Its Welcome for Some Lefties?

 

Toons added by TD

Has Woke Worn Out Its Welcome for Some Lefties? – PJ Media. . ."COVID-19 isn’t the only plague that this country has been dealing with these past couple of years. Woke wandered away from college campuses and infected almost every area of life, including the boardrooms of corporate America.

"We’ve seen a lot of culture wars on the woke battlefield play out and it often seems as if the lunatic fringe that starts the fights is prevailing. That’s just because they’re loud. Like shrieking toddlers during a tantrum.

"Upon closer examination, however, the woke crowd may not be doing that well.

"There was the Joe Rogan/Spotify drama, where the rage mob tried to get the latter to nuke the former and lost. In fact, all the wokies really accomplished was getting Neil Young to leave the platform, thus sparing the ears of all its subscribers.

Even bigger was the backlash against woke school curricula that flipped Virginia from blue to red last year.

"We have some recent, prominent examples of woke weariness setting in a little. Chris wrote a post on Sunday about the latest not-so-comedic incarnation of the once-funny Jon Stewart:.. . . . ."

The Pandemic Made Me Do It!

 Ann Coulter

"With the mind-boggling rise in violent crime since the Democrats turned all policing policies over to BLM, the media have become obsessed with convincing us that it’s all the fault of the pandemic. (At least they’re not blaming it on Putin this time.)

In its coverage of the subway shooting by a rage-filled black nationalist last week, The New York Times inserted its pandemic theory of crime into nearly every update (emphasis added):

— “Shootings in New York City rose during 2022’s first quarter compared with the same period last year … the continuation of a drumbeat of violence that emerged early in the PANDEMIC, and has not ebbed with the virus.”

— “This year’s first three months have also seen rises in crimes like burglaries, robberies and grand larcenies compared to the same periods in 2020 and 2021, though experts warn against short-term comparisons, particularly during the statistic-skewing PANDEMIC.”

— “Mr. Lee said reports of attacks across the city, along with the violence that other Asian Americans in the city have experienced throughout the coronavirus PANDEMIC, have left him fearful.”

"(I’d like to know if Mr. Lee cited the pandemic or — my guess — the Times helpfully threw that in.)

— “The city’s police commissioner announced new figures last week that showed a 36% increase in major crimes and a 16% rise in shootings over the past year — part of a rise in violence during the PANDEMIC.”

"No evidence is ever cited. The Times made no attempt to tie Frank James’ personal pandemic experience to his outburst of homicidal racism. “The pandemic caused the crime wave” is just repeated in article after article, like the sleep conditioning of infants in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.' ”. . .

18-things-that-lasted-longer-than-cnn

 18 Things That Lasted Longer Than CNN+ | The Babylon Bee

"CNN+ will be shutting down on April 30, just a month after its rocky start. Truly, its candle burned out long before its legend ever will.

"Take a gander at these eighteen things that lasted longer than CNN+:

1) A gallon of milk

2) Kamala Harris's presidential campaign

3) Two weeks to stop the spread

4) Firefly

5) Housefly

6) Brief, transitory inflation

7) Seattle's CHAZ

8) The ending of Return of the King

9) Your wife's multi-level marketing business

10) Colin Kaepernick’s enslavement in the NFL. .  

AfterMath - Home (terrellaftermath.com)

'She's losing it': Joy Reid 'essentially' calls Tucker Carlson a 'fascist' - YouTube

The more she gets away with outrageous behavior, the more outrageous her behavior will become This will lead to her downfall, not just in her career, but in her mental health as well. She clearly has problems. She reminds me of Keith Oberman.

Electric Vehicles for the Military Still a Pipedream

 

AfterMath - AfterMath Archives (terrellaftermath.com)

National Defense Magazine  . . ."Despite the Army showing interest in electric vehicles, the study, “Powering the U.S. Army of the Future,” noted that all-electric ground combat platforms and tactical supply vehicles are not practical now or in the foreseeable future.

"Several reasons accounted for its findings.

"First, the energy density of batteries today is roughly two orders of magnitude less than JP-8, the report said. That results in excessive package weight and volume to meet maneuver requirements.

“Advances in battery energy density will undoubtedly take place, but not enough to offset that magnitude of a disadvantage,” the report noted.

"Additionally, recharging all-electric vehicles in a short period of time would require massive quantities of electric power that are not available on the battlefield, the study said.

“ 'We believe that electrification of ground vehicles is highly desirable,” said John Luginsland, the committee’s co-chair and senior scientist and principal investigator at Confluent Sciences." . . .

U.S. Military Wants Its Vehicles to Go Electric — With Detroit’s Help (nationaldefensemagazine.org)

The Inconvenient Truth About Electric Vehicles - American Thinker

Not all bad news! Baskin-Robbins' Shocking New Re-Branding Campaign

I’m sure the Rainbow Troopers are already preparing to descend upon Baskin-Robbins’ wildly hateful new campaign, and the ice cream maker will soon be forced to release more “inclusive” marketing. But in the meantime, I think the rest of us know what to do!

 Baskin-Robbins' Shocking New Re-Branding Campaign – PJ Media

"In a shocking move, mega-ice cream seller Baskin-Robbins has re-branded itself for 2022 — and neglected to include any obnoxious, in-your-face woke themes in its new marketing! No parade of rainbow creatures, no pant-suited feminist mascots, no underdogs bravely standing up to America’s racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, xenophobic system. There’s nary a victim nor a woke hero to be seen. It’s almost eerie.". . .

. . ."The absolute gall of these people! Don’t they realize that somewhere, a transgender first-grader isn’t being celebrated zealously enough by xir 6-year-old peers? That black people were enslaved and mistreated? That there are billions of poor people in the world who have yet to be welcomed into the United States and given free smartphones, medical care, food, education, and housing? That white supremacists lurk around every corner, COVID still exists, mean tweets might be a thing again, and there’s a buzzsaw of a war on the other side of the world that we aren’t yet tossing our kids into??? How dare Baskin-Robbins be so innocently cheerful!

"But you don’t know true dystopian terror until you’ve  seen their new ad:". . .

So many have Joe's "six"

 

                                                                                                 Image from Max Benjamin.

2017 Clip of 'Morning Joe' Host Claiming Media's Job is to 'Control What People Think' Makes the Rounds (townhall.com)  "Back in 2017, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski provided, with a straight face, a stunning moment of honesty about what the aim of the mainstream media is. She warned that then-President Donald Trump was "trying to undermine the media, trying to make up his own facts" and that "he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think," as she went on to insist "that is our job.' ". . .

Embracing the Permanent: William F. Buckley and Populism

 Embracing the Permanent: William F. Buckley and Populism › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)

In embracing the permanent, one may be unfashionable, but one is never out of date.

"I never heard my friend William F. Buckley, Jr., opine about the merits or deficiencies of “populism.” But I often heard him discourse about the virtues of liberty and the political, social, and moral liabilities of the Left-liberal consensus. In my view, what we call “populism” was an important ingredient in liberty as WFB understood it. That was the point of one of his most famous mots. “I’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory,” he said, “than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.”

"Was this wealthy and sophisticated gadfly pulling our leg? Was this Yale man just guying his rivals in Cambridge?

"I don’t think so. Buckley, who died in 2008 at 83, did as much as anyone to make conservatism intellectually and (just as important) socially respectable in the United States. He was too urbane and too verbally nimble to be dismissed as another troglodytic tobacco-chewing throwback. (For one thing, Bill took his tobacco in elegant little cigarillos.)

"Nevertheless, he had an abiding appreciation of the wisdom of the people and a corresponding suspicion of the elites, especially in their overbearing, Potomac-fever incarnation. “I rejoice in the influence of the people over their elected leaders,” he said on that same occasion, “since I think that they show more wisdom than their leaders or their intellectuals.” 

"The fact that a man of Buckley’s pedigree could prefer a promiscuous sampling of the census rolls to the educated tony-ness of Harvard not only offers us insight into his own political filiations: it also offers us some lessons about some contemporary political controversies. 

"What would Bill Buckley have thought about Donald Trump and his “America First” platform?". . .

CNN's Brian Stelter about to get the boot?

 Monica Showalter

SOURCE(S): "Brian Stelter's days are numbered with the network." Discovery management "very much considers him a Zucker henchmen and embarrassment" and believes he is "a negative partisan lighting rod and distraction going forward"

"It should have happened a long time ago.

"But, well, it's happening now.

"Brian Stelter, the television "journalist" who's the suck-up's suck-up in an industry full of stenographers, prevaricators, and teacher's pets, may now be on his last legs at CNN.

"According to USSA News:

After the Warner Brothers/Discovery merger, there was a focus on what partisan crap Fake News CNN has become. One of the people who makes Fake News CNN the least trusted name in news entertainment is our favorite genderless Potato head content creator Brian Stelter. Rumor has it his days are numbered. At least, according to reporter Jon Nicosia.

Nicosia's past credentials include Mediaite and Washington Examiner. His sources are the ones breaking the bad news, stating Discovery management "very much considers him a Zucker henchman and embarrassment" and believes he is "a negative partisan lighting rod and distraction going forward.". . .

. . ." Now that there's no Cuomo to make into the billy goat, Stelter is grasping for straws, sucking up to someone, anyone, within his vicinity, particularly Jen Psaki, who will now be working soon at MSNBC.  Can you imagine Stelter not wanting a piece of that, too, particularly with his job on the line at CNN?  It certainly would explain his latest round of suck-up behavior.  CNN will benefit from his absence."

 BRIAN STELTER FLAILS AS COLLEGE FRESHMAN CONFRONTS HIM ON CNN’S ‘DISINFORMATION’ ON HUNTER BIDEN, RUSSIA HOAX

"They push the Russian collusion hoax, they push the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smear Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a White supremacist. And yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation," Phillips said.

Brian Stelter fails to ask The Atlantic journalist about their controversial Hunter Biden comments | Fox News  

"The CNN host ignored the topic, after he was also shamed by students at a ‘disinformation’ forum". . .

People are focused on Hispanics’ low approval of Biden, but take a look at the real outlier: +65 Americans.

Thread Reader at Revolver

"Biden is + with +65 yos with his highest approval number of any age bracket at 48%. This is insane if you consider the race cross tabs here. Only 23% of seniors are non-white so being at 48% with seniors blows out demographic expectations.

"His white approval rate is in the low 30s. It’s possible they crammed Ds into the +65 segment to lift that approval number up. Could have done the same with whites w/degrees. This was a favored tactic for Florida polling in ‘20 that showed Biden up +5%. Eagles 

"Overall disappointment on the left for Biden not being ‘left enough’ (only held back by Manchin) and no Green New Deal explains general dissatisfaction across younger ages that should support him. 76% from Ds is weaker than Obama ever had. They’ll vote D even if mad at Biden. 

"Black approval rate isn’t high enough to make up for it either. It’s such an outlier that polling shenanigans is the likely culprit. There is another possibility. The +65 crowd might have seen the world pass them by. Biden’s play for normality in ‘20 might work due to no tweets 

"The +65 crowd will swallow that covid is better. It’s not, but there’s no death ticker on tv and no nonstop psyop. Biden is awful but a known quantity. These people can think ‘90s Biden is a return to normal. They don’t have kids in schools. Their homes are paid for. They have $. 

"They aren’t working. DEI doesn’t affect them yet. The age skew isn’t as bad as in France where Macron enjoys amazing support from the elderly ‘68ers. It’s still bad if not a function of poll chicanery. We shouldn’t be surprised by the last gen that watches TV & believes its lies 

"These are the civility types. These Boomers likely rank JFK as a top 5 president because of vague memories curated by the media and his handsome smile. They hated Trump because the media & what he reminded them of themselves. 

"Biden offers a better (in their mind) reflection of a declining old man who has kids that look out for him (for corrupt deals) and younger minorities pat his back & praise him for being hip to their wants (a good white). ". . .

Silence is no longer golden: The left demands woke words

 Left demands woke words from corporations (nypost.com)

"Examples of this virtue-signaling abound: Think of every horrible video with endless Hollywood celebrities profoundly and sincerely decrying whatever the outrage du jour is. The issue here isn’t really “cancel culture,” it’s whether we can have entertainment and corporate spaces that are free of politics. 

SEE ALSO

Oh, to be as privileged as a Black Lives Matter leader

"This is part of a weird larger trend in corporate America in which it is no longer enough for companies to sell us soap and smartphones; they also must be saving the world, leading the way for cultural change or standing up to this, that or the other thing. Why? Why can’t they just sell us a widget and shut up? 

"The answer, until recently, has been that progressive public-relations stunts bought companies cred with the hyper-left at little cost. You could throw “love is love” into a commercial, throw on a colorful ribbon at the Oscars, and feel smug as you collected a paycheck. 

"Now that’s not enough. Activists and the Twitter mobs won’t accept it when businesses and cultural heroes don’t take a stand. You denounced that law in Kentucky, why won’t you do the same in Texas? 

"It’s hypocritical, of course, because the loudest voices in the room are screaming about Republican governors, but never call for a boycott of, say, Myanmar. And progressives are never happy with bland slogans of unity — they are increasingly pushing companies to oppose laws that most Americans agree with, including the Florida school curriculum one. ". . .

Conservative shareholders target 'woke' corporate boards - Washington Times  "Conservative investors are becoming shareholder activists to battle what they call the “woke” gender and race policies of America’s corporate boardrooms."

Will Conservative Investors Now Become Shareholder Activists and Battle 'Woke' Boardrooms? – RedState   . . ."In the wake of Elon Musk’s hostile takeover bid to acquire 100 percent of Twitter and take the leftist, conservative-censoring Big Tech giant private, investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald — the best in the business in my not-so-humble opinion — made the following observation:

Yesterday was a flagship day in corporate media. It was the day they were forced to explicitly state what has long been clear: they not only favor censorship but desperately crave and depend on it.

Even if Musk doesn’t buy Twitter, never forget what yesterday revealed.