Quick Hits

Moose Mike is showing she's "all done with Trump."

That's how The Hill puts it, as some kind of Yas Slay Queen moment, rather than as an ugly, incivil destruction of Our Precious Normzzz.

Michelle Obama is done with President-elect Trump, if her decision to skip next week's inauguration means anything.

The former first lady, who once called on Democrats to go high when Trump's Republican Party goes low, will not be going to the Capitol to watch Trump take the presidential oath for a second time, leaving her husband, former President Obama, to go it alone.

Longtime allies of the former first lady say she is sending a powerful statement by skipping the event.

They say she wants nothing to do with a man undeserving of the presidency and is making no effort to hide her disdain for Trump.

"She meant every word she said on the campaign trail with every fiber of her being," one ally said. "And she's no hypocrite."

And she's no lady.

MSNBC's president, Rashida Jones, is "stepping down."

Totally voluntarily, I'm sure.

The president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, stepped down on Tuesday, a major change at the cable network as it waits to see if loyal liberal viewers will tune back in when President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.

Rebecca Kutler, senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC, succeeded Ms. Jones as interim president, the company said. Ms. Jones, who held the job for nearly four years, will stay on in an advisory role through March.

Ms. Jones exited amid ratings pressure on the cable news industry and on MSNBC in particular, whose left-leaning programming has suffered a sharp decline in viewership since Mr. Trump's election in November. Executives have said that the post-election ratings dip is normal and that they anticipate a rebound as Mr. Trump settles into his second term.

MSNBC is also among a bundle of cable channels that its parent company, Comcast, will spin out this year into a new company. The spinoff will sever MSNBC from the news-gathering engine of NBC News, its longtime corporate cousin, and the cable network said on Tuesday that it would seek to hire a new head of news gathering and a new head of talent.

"We have a lot to do," Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, who will oversee the new company that includes MSNBC, told colleagues in a call on Tuesday announcing Ms. Jones's departure.

Mr. Lazarus also said MSNBC would retain its name after the spinoff, and he offered a vote of confidence in Ms. Kutler, calling her "the ideal leader to guide us through this moment."

Why would they keep the name?

In a major sign that the Age of Woke is crashing to a filthy, stinking end, Starbucks has reversed its woke policy, imposed on franchisees after a couple of freeloading black dudes decided they had the right to use Starbucks as their office-away-from-home while refusing to order even a single coffee, of allowing homeless people to blow out their toilets and use them as shooting galleries without even buying a single $6 cup of coffee.

The popular coffee chain Starbucks is putting the kibosh on its open door policy, and will now only welcome paying customers to hang out and utilize the restrooms at its stores.

In a letter directed to store managers and above, which the company provided to Fox News Digital, Starbucks executive vice president and president of Starbucks North America Sara Trilling noted, "we are establishing a new code of conduct that will be displayed in every store. This is common practice, and makes clear that our spaces, including our cafes, patios and restrooms, are for use by paying customers and our partners."

The coffee company's move to limit the use of its faciliites to paying customers represents an about-face from its previous policy.

In 2018, the company declared, "Any customer is welcome to use Starbucks spaces, including our restrooms, cafes and patios, regardless of whether they make a purchase."

The code of conduct -- which stipulates that Starbucks spaces are available for employees and customers -- prohibits panhandling, smoking, vaping, doing drugs, imbibing "outside alcohol," and engaging in "violence or abusive/threatening language," "discrimination or harassment," "misuse or disruption of our spaces."

Starbucks notes that it will ask rule breakers to depart, and warns that it may request assistance from law enforcement.

Joanne Jacobs: Students want to be given A's and B's just for, allegedly, "trying."

Students want to be rewarded for effort, even if it doesn't lead to achievement, writes psychologist Adam Grant in a New York Times op-ed. "Two-thirds of college students say that "trying hard" should be a factor in their grades, and a third think they should get at least a B just for showing up at (most) classes," he writes.

Psychologist Carol Dweck persuaded teachers and parents to praise Gen Z children for effort, not their abilities, to create a "growth mindset," Grant writes. "The idea of lauding persistence quickly made its way into viral articles, best-selling books and popular TED talks. It resonated with the Protestant work ethic and reinforced the American dream that with hard work, anyone could achieve success."

But it went too far. Effort is great, but it's not "an end in itself," he writes. Sometimes, students who are working hard but failing to accomplish their goal should stop and think. "Trying harder isn't always the answer," writes Grant. "Sometimes it's working smarter, and other times it's working on something else altogether."

In more news suggesting the End of the Age of Woke: Amazon caves on (some) DEI.

Jen Rubin's new podcast has everything! It has humor! It has a cooking segment!

It opens with easily-proven major defamations that might bankrupt everyone involved!

Sara Rose @saras76

Bondi to Schiff: "I'm not going to mislead this body, nor you. You were censured by Congress for comments like these."

Here's where she really got him:

I don't know how we missed this exchange yesterday:

posted by Ace at 06:30 PM

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