EARLY BLACK FRIDAY DEAL: Christmas Decorations. #CommisisonEarned
November 20, 2023
TWO GUNS? You bet!
JUST WAITING TO SEE HOW LONG IT TAKES GOOGLE TO DEMONETIZE ANOTHER ONE OF MY COLUMNS: Stop Trying to Make COVID a Thing (Again) (And Again).
BIDENOMICS IS WORKING: Average American’s retirement balance falls 4% as more and more savers dip into their later life savings to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, here’s another in an endless series of pieces explaining why Americans are too stupid to know how good we’ve got it under Biden: The US economy is doing well under Biden: But Americans don’t believe it.
Who you gonna believe, the establishment or your own lyin’ 401(k)?
UP IN SMOKE: The biggest pot distributor in California has collapsed.
California state law requires distributor companies to work as middlemen between pot producers and retailers. HERBL’s demise has become a giant flashing red warning sign because of the vital role distributors play in California’s market; if a company as large and entrenched as HERBL can go under, experts say, then there are deep problems in the industry that will only lead to more company failures.
“I do feel like we’re going to see a significant and material number of closures, up and down the supply chain,” Wesley Hein, the president of the Cannabis Distribution Association, told SFGATE.
Observers in the industry say that HERBL’s demise shows how cannabis companies in California are forced to abide by a more difficult set of rules than other industries. They also argue that if HERBL were a different type of company, the state government would have stepped in to save it.
Only in California (and maybe Colorado?) would the government’s “too big to fail” bailout ethos also apply to marijuana growers.
BAFFLING: If that’s not what “you” do, what are “you” supposed to do?
“You” are supposed to arrest people and punish them, we’re told. But who’s the “you”? That’s not something CVS can do. CVS is stuck with limited options, and it’s doing something within its power. Is it supposed to stop so that things can be stolen because that creates the opportunity to arrest people and punish them? Actually, the WaPo Editorial Board is not recommending arresting all shoplifters — only “ringleaders” and maybe people who “steal 10 or more times in a 30-day period.” But CVS ought to reload its shelves and give free rein to those who avoid organized crime and who avoid getting caught more than twice a week.”
It’s hard for journalists to confront reality.
TB IS STILL OUR BIGGEST KILLER DISEASE: Cancer therapy shows promise against tuberculosis.
GOODER AND HARDER, NEW YORK: NY ranked ‘Least Free State,’ with high taxes, debt, regulation.
DOES IT WORK ON MONKEYPOX? NEVER MIND, FORTUNATELY, MONKEYPOX DOESN’T EXIST ANYMORE: In the lab: An mpox mRNA vaccine that’s outperforming its old-school predecessor.
“JOURNALIST”: Israel Arrests NBC Journalist for Inciting Terrorism.
NOPE. BUT OUR PRONOUNS ARE IMMACULATE. Andy Kessler: Is the US Ready for War?
Ukraine’s troops are using both old-fashioned heavy artillery and commercial products such as drones with grenades attached to them, directed via Starlink’s satellite internet service. Hamas terrorists used motorcycles and paragliders. Israeli soldiers use sophisticated Iron Dome antimissile systems and, to close off tunnels, “sponge bombs” that work like spray foam sealant from Home Depot. . . .
I sensed frustration. “It’s like pulling teeth to get the DOD to focus on what’s needed to fight and win the wars. Ukraine is a reminder that that kind of warfare has not vanished from the earth. There’s still going to be battlefields. There’s still going to be the infantry in the army that have to close with and destroy the enemy, to fire and maneuver as opposed to big brains sitting back in Washington, D.C., clacking away on keyboards and all of a sudden, you compel a nation to submit to your will.”
I nodded and said I agreed. Mr. Cotton quickly jumped in: “There was a lot of people who don’t agree with you and me, just to be clear, like mostly Democrats.”
But not exclusively.
MICHAEL WALSH: The Toxoplasmosis of the Feline Left.
THE COPE IS STRONG: 5 ways Democrats are coping with Biden’s terrible polls.
The Washington Post reported that during a September political panel in Aspen, Colorado, an attendee raised concerns about Biden’s viability as the Democratic nominee, and asked: What’s the backup plan?
According to the Post, former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain had a quick rebuttal: “The president is the party’s nominee, Klain said, and a strong nominee at that. There is no backup plan.”
There is certainly no backup plan that would be as orderly as renominating Biden. But there’s an entire fleet of Democratic up-and-comers biding their time and laying the groundwork for future White House bids — whether it’s by hosting a debate in the first-in-the-nation primary state, or holding a surprise meeting with President Xi Jinping in China.
And there are a few members of the Biden administration whom the president has cast as the party’s political future, including his vice president.
However, pitching Biden as the only option plays into Democrats’ fear of the unknown, particularly when up against Trump.
“He isn’t Trump” might not be quite the selling point it was in 2020, considering what’s happened to the economy and the world since Biden took over.
PARTY OF YOUTH UPDATE: Biden Turns 81 — Say, How’s That ‘Bridge’ Coming?
On the menu today: Don’t expect the White House to make a big deal of it and remind everyone about one of Joe Biden’s biggest campaign liabilities, but today is the president’s 81st birthday. NBC News greeted the president with a new poll showing him trailing Trump nationally and his approval rating hitting the lowest number ever recorded in its survey. Even young voters, traditionally a demographic that Democrats win handily, appear surprisingly split about their options in a Biden–Trump rematch. Finally, former Obama chief strategist David Axelrod warns that Biden’s odds in a matchup with Trump are less than 50–50, and that, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, Biden is relying on Trump’s odiousness to put him over the top — an unsafe bet. And if Axelrod is saying that publicly, how likely is it that former president Obama concurs privately?
* * * * * * * *
Back in 2019, Biden himself reportedly signaled to aides that he would serve only a single term. There was a lot of talk back then about Biden being a bridge to a new generation of Democratic leaders, and more than a little of that talk came from Biden himself. “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said at a March 9, 2020, campaign rally with Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Gretchen Whitmer. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” (Looking back at historical events from early March 2020 feels like watching events from the first ten days of September 2001. The world’s about to suddenly change, and nobody on screen knows it.)
But Biden clearly hasn’t been a “bridge” to anyone or anything. If you wanted Biden to be a transitional president, then the work of preparing the American public for President Kamala Harris would’ve had to start much earlier.
Well, Biden has certainly tossed many projects towards Harris to, depending upon how charitable you are, either demonstrate that she’s ready to take over, or (more likely) as revenge for her calling him a racist during the 2020 primaries:
● Psaki insists Harris still border czar after Guatemalan leader claims no contact.
● “Biden announced that Harris would head up the administration’s efforts to monitor and combat what he called the Republican Party’s ‘unprecedented assault on democracy.’”
● Biden: I’m putting Kamala Harris in charge of getting voting rights legislation passed through Congress. “Ah, that’s nice of him. Something new for her to fail at instead of just failing to ease the border crisis.”
Flashbacks:
● How Joe Biden is Hanging Kamala Harris Out to Dry.
● DOCTOR Jill Biden Told Kamala ‘Go F*** Yourself’ for Attacking Her Husband.
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: California Suspends Gun License of Homeowner Who Protected His Family From Intruders.
SAY WHAT YOU WILL, I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB:
Grandma: “so Ryan, what are you grateful for this thanksgiving”
Me:
pic.twitter.com/RKi4z1J0Rp— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) November 20, 2023
I also like that this guy was so popular with younger voters.
THIS IS WHAT WEST POINT DOES INSTEAD OF TRAINING THE OFFICERS WHO WIN WARS: West Point Calls for Unconstitutional Censorship— Ahem, ‘Disinformation’ Commission.
STOCKING STUFFERS: Men-Universal Socket Tools. #CommissionEarned
DON’T GET COCKY: Joe Biden is facing a near-historic deficit for an incumbent.
Take a look at recent national surveys from CBS News/YouGov, CNN/SSRS, Fox News, Marquette University Law School and Quinnipiac University. All five are high-quality polls that meet CNN standards for publication.
All five give Trump an advantage of 2 to 4 points over Biden among registered or likely voters. On their own, none of these data points mean too much. Trump’s lead in all of them is within the margin of error. Averaged together, though, they paint a picture of an incumbent with a real problem.
Over the past 80 years, incumbents have, on average, led their eventual challengers by a little more than 10 points about a year out from the election. This includes nearly every incumbent for whom we have polling since Franklin Roosevelt in 1943.
It includes Barack Obama against Mitt Romney in November 2011. This is notable because a number of Democrats have tried to dismiss the current data showing Biden in trouble by saying that Obama had been behind at this point, too. That simply isn’t true.
And this from Maureen Dowd:
According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, Donald Trump is ahead in five battleground states and, as some other surveys have found, is even making inroads among Black voters and young voters. There’s a generational fracture in the Democratic Party over the Israeli-Hamas horror and Biden’s age. Third-party spoilers are circling.
The president turns 81 on Monday; the Oval hollows out its occupants quickly, and Biden is dealing with two world-shattering wars, chaos at the border, a riven party and a roiling country.
“I think he has a 50-50 shot here, but no better than that, maybe a little worse,” Axelrod said. “He thinks he can cheat nature here and it’s really risky. They’ve got a real problem if they’re counting on Trump to win it for them. I remember Hillary doing that, too.”
The president’s flash of anger indicates that he may be in denial, surrounded by enablers who are sugarcoating a grim political forecast.
Biden has always lashed out, always punched down. Even if he isn’t surrounded by enablers, he doesn’t have the strength of character to listen to honest criticism.
I REMEMBER WHEN FEMINISTS WERE AGAINST RAPE: Now they’re making excuses for it when it’s by Hamas.
CHATGPT CAN GET OFF MY LAWN. Should professors do anything differently when students can use ChatGPT to generate answers and essays? I have a suggestion: go back to handwritten, closed-note (and closed-device) bluebook exams. Exam problem solved. Papers are trickier, but I suspect making ChatGPT generate a 10- or 20-page paper that sounds believable is about as hard as writing the paper itself.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Biden Uses Cold War Law to Nuke Your Gas Furnace. “Remember when it was nothing more than right-wing fearmongering that Democrats were going to outlaw your gas appliances? It was a more innocent time, way back in [checks notes] January of this year.”
