Category Archives: culture

A Clear Path Forward

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FIFA’s (Fédération Internationale de Football Association—International Federation of Football Association(s)—President Gianni Infantino is under pressure to resign over his shenanigans regarding selling off major parts of the Federation to private entities (which itself is only the latest of a number of his unilateralist escapades). Three of the six major football associations, UEFA, Concacaf, and the Asian Football Confederation, have sent an open letter to the Federation “calling for change at the top.” These three associations comprise the vast bulk of FIFA; only CONMEBOL, the South American football association, has any size in the remaining three.

Of course, Infantino is standing fast. He understands that letters, however sternly worded, are only words and entirely empty of force. If the three associations are serious, though, and not content simply to yap from their respective porches, they’ll do two additional things.

The first is to clarify their letter with a hard deadline for Infantino’s resignation, and not only his, but his staff as well. The deadline should be nearby, say a week from the date of their clarifying letter.

The second thing is what would give teeth to the words of their two letters. One minute after their deadline has passed without satisfaction, they would all resign from FIFA and form their own, separate International Federation.

Without those two follow-ups, the three associations will be known as unserious tissue tigers.

Why Weren’t Reporters Told?

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It seems that President Donald Trump (R), on the way back from a NATO meeting in Ankara, boarded a “legacy Air Force One,” moved to a catering truck’s container that was ostensibly transferring provisions to the aircraft, via that catering container transferred to a different aircraft, and flew that one to the UK. On arrival there, he transferred to the legacy Air Force One, which had arrived at the same time, and deplaned in view of the press and onlookers, with none of them the wiser.

The press corps and a number of government officials who had accompanied Trump to the meeting had remained on that Air Force One, uninformed about the President’s having shifted to a different aircraft.

The whole business was a Secret Service response to a threat that Iranians would attempt to shoot down the Air Force One aircraft on its takeoff from Ankara, murdering the President.

The Press Precious Ones have their collective panties in hard wedgies over not having been informed of the switch and having seemingly been used as decoys, as CNN‘s Jake Tapper bleated.

An angry press is demanding answers on why reporters weren’t told of Trump’s plane transfer or whether their presence aboard the supposed Air Force One—alongside senior officials Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—put them at serious risk.

There’s this, too:

The White House didn’t plan to disclose the feint, officials said, until the Washington Post revealed it….

And this from John Kirby, who spent his Navy career in the Navy’s press-facing career track and was ex-Presidents Barack Obama’s (D) and Joe Biden’s (D) Pentagon and White House Press Secretary, had this:

They also deserved—as did the unwitting staffers on the plane—the opportunity to make alternative travel plans….

Sure. Because the sudden mass transfer of passengers from Air Force One to alternate aircraft, coming as close as it necessarily would have to the Air Force One’s scheduled departure given the timing of the decision to set up the President’s transfer, would not have exposed the Secret Service’s and the US and of Israeli intelligence communities’ knowledge of the threat. Right.

WaPo‘s exposure and Kirby’s studied disingenuousness are why the press wasn’t told of the transfer. The press cannot be trusted with information like that. Even revealing the transfer after the fact is dangerous, revealing capabilities and potentially sources as it does.

Pressmen are well aware, as much smarter and so much better informed than us average Americans as they hold themselves out to be, of that danger.

Decoys? That’s the highest value of today’s news writers.

Examples of Progressive-Democratic Party Thought

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This is what some Progressive-Democratic Party candidates for office, some of whom have won their primaries and others of whom have significant leads in their primaries, are campaigning on. Keep in mind that party primaries are where party voters choose who they want to represent them.

Darializa Avila Chevalier Progressive-Democratic Party’s choice for a US Congressional seat from New York:

  • government ownership of the means of production
  • prison abolitionist
  • police abolitionist
  • proud of wiping her dirty hands on the American flag
  • open celebrant of Hamas butchery

Francesca Hong, Progressive-Democratic Party’s choice for Wisconsin’s Governor:

  • abolish the Senate
  • police exist to uphold white supremacy
  • canceling Thanksgiving as a colonizer holiday
  • canceling Halloween and Christmas just because

Christina Bohannan, Progressive-Democratic Party’s choice for a seat representing Iowa in the US Congress:

  • patriotism is a sensitive and controversial subject
  • 1619 Project is preferred history of the US

Party has selected or is close to selecting similarly disposed candidates in other States—viz., Angie Craig for US Senate and Ilhan Omar for US Congress in Minnesota, Pramila Jayapal for US Congress (again!)—and it already elected the dual-membershipped (DSA and Party) Zorhan Mamdami. That’s only so far in this election cycle.

This is what the Progressive-Democratic Party stands for, made explicit by its taking the Democratic Socialists of America into its bosom.

It’s true that Republicans picked Victor Marx as their candidate for Colorado governor, but he’s a clear exception to what the party stands for. Those others are typical of Party.

Corruption, Thy Name Is…

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The lede lays it out in no uncertain terms.

Arizona’s largest county suffered a significant breach of its election data in the days before the 2020 presidential election when a self-described hacker foiled security and obtained 633,000 voter registration files but the Biden Justice Department and local prosecutors declined to bring charges even after the FBI got the suspect to confess, according to declassified documents made public Thursday by the White House.

And this:

FBI Director Kash Patel sent a letter to that task force this week stating the bureau spent “significant resources” but could not get the US Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Maricopa County Arizona Attorney’s Office or the Pinal County, Arizona Attorney’s Office to bring charges despite an admission from the alleged hacker.

The Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party politicians insist that our election system is entirely secure and there’s no need for a SAVE Act to secure it. Never mind that the hacker suspect described just how “secure” the Maricopa County setup was (and is?):

The suspect, who described himself as a “hacker or tinkerer,” told the agents that he first discovered the vulnerabilities in Maricopa’s website about two months earlier, in September 2020. “He noticed his voter ID appeared in the URL” after entering his own voter information and “tested the vulnerability by entering several seven-digit numbers into the URL path resulting in access to different voter registration information,” the agents wrote.

That lack of security is so bad it has to be deliberate. The software designer, tester, and their supervisors, along with the Election Monitor chief all need to be on trial for that criminal negligence.

Lose the ad Hominem

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Michigan’s Republican nominee for US Senate, Mike Rogers, commented on his now opponent, Democratic Socialists of America nominee, Abdul el-Sayed (formally, the Progressive-Democratic Party nominee), for the same seat.

The choice this November is simple: common sense or complete insanity. For more than 25 years, one party has controlled Michigan’s two Senate seats—and they’ve run our state into the ground. They’ve driven 200,000 manufacturing jobs out of Michigan. They’ve dropped our schools to 45th in the nation. They’ve saddled families with the highest utility rates in the Midwest. Working people are paying more, earning less, and getting left behind.

Rogers’ statement would have been just as effective, if not more so, had he left off the ad hominem phrasing after that colon. He’ll be much more effective if he sticks to the policy failures of the Progressive-Democratic Party and the destructive nature of the DSA’s goals—which include elimination of the Senate for which seat the two are competing—and the already empirically demonstrated failures of the economic policies which el-Sayed espouses.

Rogers does not need the ad hominem foolishness. Using that just diminishes him and dilutes his case when it isn’t distracting from it.