JOURNALISM:

It seems like kind of a big deal that NBC News and then MS NOW seem happy to employ a “journalist” with such a bad reputation in-house.

ALWAYS: The DOJ’s New 2A Rights Section Sounds Like a Good Thing, but Gun Owners Need to Stay Vigilant. “Here’s the truth gun owners need to hear: you don’t stop a runaway bureaucracy with a press release. No one should trust a single bureaucrat inside the DOJ until their actions match their headlines. Because right now, the DOJ is speaking out of both sides of its mouth — promising gun-rights enforcement with one hand while defending gun-control tyranny with the other. And unless gun owners stay loud, organized, and relentless, this new office could turn out to be just another Washington smokescreen.”

The Trump administration’s record is solid, but what happens to the new section once a Democrat is in charge again…

IT’S COME TO THIS: Tim Walz Says Trump’s Slur Is Inspiring Others To Scream It Outside His House.

Tim Walz called it a slur that should never be repeated. Now, he hears it all day.

The Minnesota governor, on Thursday, Dec. 4, said people have been driving by his home and screaming the r-slur — a word used to malign those with intellectual disabilities — since President Donald Trump called him that in a social media post last week.

“This creates danger,” the embattled governor said, discussing Republican rhetoric. “… I’ve never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the R-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see an elected official — a Republican elected official — say you’re right, that’s shameful.”

Walz said he believes it’s a slippery slope from name-calling to something more serious.

“We know how these things go,” he said. “It starts with taunts; they turn to violence.”

Are people burning rubber as they speed away after shouting “Retard?” Mrs. Walz at least would enjoy the piquant scent of well-heated Michelins.

UPDATE: Flashback to last fall, when Walz wasn’t afraid to go full retard on himself: ‘I’m a knucklehead:’ Tim Walz says he ‘misspoke’ about Tiananmen Square visit.

MORE:

Heh, indeed. Like most leftists, Walz can dish out all the slurs, but can’t take it when the right pushes back:

Franklin knows the score:

THE DARK SIDE OF THE NARNIA ISN’T GOING TO LIGHT ANYONE’S FIRE: IMAX CEO: Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Is “Not Your Grandmother’s Narnia,” Will Feature Rock-Inspired Music.

IMAX held its first Investors Day presentation in New York, where CEO Rich Gelfond shared new details about Netflix and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, scheduled for release next November. His most revealing comments centred on the film’s musical direction.

According to Gelfond, Gerwig’s Narnia will feature a contemporary, rock-influenced sound, with artists like Pink Floyd and The Doors cited as examples of the tone fans can expect. The film’s score is being composed by music producer Mark Ronson, who recently worked on Barbie. Producer Amy Pascal made a similar remark in 2024, when she infamously described the project as “all about rock and roll.”

This is a real blockbuster movie that’s being made for [IMAX and Netflix] and you know, I guess I do have to talk a little about why I’m so excited about it. This is not your mother’s or your grandmother‘s Narnia. The music in it is unbelievably contemporary music, which IMAX fans like. I’m not gonna say specifically, but things like Pink Floyd and The Doors. You know that kind of music which people go to see in IMAX.”

I get what Gelfond is saying, and as someone who enjoyed the Narnia movies from the early 2000s, I’m dreading what Gerwig is going to do to the franchise. But considering that Jim Morrison died in 1971 and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973, for many moviegoers that sounds exactly like their parents or grandparents’ music. And as the leitmotif from another initially beloved franchise goes, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Really, really bad: Netflix gives Narnia to “Barbie,” “Little Women” director, who sees her work as “the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis” and strips away “the pre-Victorian morality” of characters. 🫠

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: Trump Praises Congo, Rwanda as They Sign US-Mediated Peace Deal.

The AP’s Aamer Madhani, Chinedu Asadu and Ruth Alonga slammed Trump in about every third sentence of their report, but so what? Trump is making peace while they’re doing whatever the hell that was.

THIS, PART II:

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Weingart’s $27 Million Dollar Homeless Heist: LA’s Pay to Play Pipeline Strikes Again – And the Trail of Donations Tells An Ever Darker Story.

The Weingart Center Association, long portrayed as one of LA’s “trusted” homeless service providers, is now at the center of a federal probe into a secretive $27.3 million property flip in Cheviot Hills. A flip that looks less like a housing solution and more like a blueprint for legalized theft. A flip that mirrors Shangri-La’s scheme almost down to the timestamps. And a flip that, when paired with newly uncovered campaign donation data from the LA County Registrar-Recorder’s TRACER system, paints a damning picture of influence peddling, coordinated bundling, and political payoffs hiding in plain sight.

The scandal begins in April 2024, when Weingart used public dollars from California’s Homekey program, along with city and federal COVID relief funds, to buy a 76-unit senior complex on Shelby Drive for $27.3 million. The stated intent was noble: convert the building into housing for the unhoused. But nothing about this transaction was noble. Or transparent. Or even remotely defensible.

The seller, shielded behind a confidentiality clause, was a shell tied to Brentwood developer Steven Taylor, who bought the same property just four months earlier for $11.2 million. No improvements. No renovations. No additional value. Just a $16.1 million markup magically materializing, rubber-stamped by a BBG appraisal that ignored the recent purchase price and pretended the flip never happened. The entire thing should have triggered alarms up and down City Hall and the Board of Supervisors. Instead, Weingart submitted an application to the state for Homekey funds that conveniently omitted the pending sale, while Mayor Karen Bass pushed $20 million of city dollars toward the project and celebrated it as a win for homelessness.

Homeless, Inc. is a scam to line the pockets of the well-connected.

THIS:

THAT’S NOT GOOD: University of Delaware student arrested, police say he had machine gun and a plan to attack campus. “Luqmaan Khan, 25, was arrested Nov. 24 after New Castle County Police officers found him parked illegally in Canby Park West late at night. Officers stopped his vehicle and, after he resisted arrest, searched the car. Inside, they found a modified Glock handgun with a high-capacity magazine, body armor, and a notebook laying out plans for potential attacks and how to avoid law enforcement detection.” He was talking about “martyrdom.”