BUY ELECTRIC CARS! Also: Australian Energy Market Operator suspends spot market for wholesale electricity to ensure reliability and avoid blackouts.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: National Review: Hey, How Did the Blessing of Liberty We Know as Drag Shows for Children Get So Out-of-Control…?!?!
IF IT WERE A CHROMOSOME THAT GOT YOU EXTRA SEX, THAT WOULD BE EVEN MORE POPULAR: Extra Sex Chromosomes in Men Seem to Be Much More Common Than We Realized.
But that would be an extra-sex chromosome, not an extra sex chromosome.
WEAR A MASK AND PERFORM OTHER USELESS ACTIONS OR YOU WANT PEOPLE TO DIE: San Diego IDs 2 monkeypox cases; WHO warns int’l outbreak ‘poses real risk.’ I plan to wear an onion on my belt.
ONE OF THE OPTIONS BEING CONSIDERED INVOLVES BIDEN DECLARING “A NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY.” White House Consults with Law Professors in Anticipation of Dobbs Ruling.
Following the Covid debacle with a “health emergency” that’s really about preserving abortion is a good way to make sure that “health emergencies” are ignored in the future.
And the federal government can certainly protect people’s right to interstate travel, which is an independent constitutional right that states can’t infringe. But I don’t think that will satisfy the Democrats’ activist base.
SOMEBODY NEEDS TO: Biden Administration Sues a City Over “Rampant Overspending on Teacher Salaries:” Could the SEC, of all agencies, ride to the school-reform rescue?
The Biden administration’s Securities and Exchange Commission is suing the city of Rochester, New York, contending that “rampant overspending on teacher salaries” plunged the Rochester school district into “extreme financial distress,” misleading investors who bought municipal bonds.
The legal action is unusual. Sure, the federal government’s interaction with K-12 education has often extended beyond the bounds of the U.S. Department of Education. The Department of Agriculture administers the school lunch program, and the Department of Defense operates schools serving military-connected children. Under George W. Bush, the Justice Department toyed with the idea of using antitrust law to support charter schools. And in the waning days of the Trump administration, President Trump issued an executive order authorizing “emergency learning scholarships” to be provided via the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
But, notwithstanding Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine’s theory that “everything is securities fraud,” in practice, the K-12 education beat hasn’t intersected greatly with the fraud provisions of federal securities laws. At least until now.
Hmm.
WAS IT OVER WHEN SADDAM HUSSEIN BOMBED PEARL HARBOR?! Nancy Pelosi reminds us that ‘we have the war in Iraq,’ is shocked to discover she has hands that can move around (video).
We were somewhere in DC near the edge of the Capitol Building when the chardonnay kicked in.
ELECTRIC CAR NEWS: Ford Recalling ‘Mustang’ Mach-E Over Battery Issues.
OUT ON A LIMB: The FBI knew RussiaGate was a lie — but hid that truth.
DON SURBER: Worst timing in the world.
Coinbase ran a commercial during the NBA finals game last night that mocked tweets that said “crypto is dead.”
This morning, Coinbase laid off 18% of its staff. Its stock has plunged from a high of $357.39 on November 9 to $49.72 seven months later.
CNBC reported, “Coinbase is laying off almost a fifth of its workforce amid a collapse in its stock and crypto prices.
* * * * * * * *
Is crypto dead?
Well, are railroads?
To be sure, hundreds of railroads died along the way. The list of failures includes the Salt Lake and Pacific Railroad.
But railroads continue to operate because we need them. 28% of the freight in the USA moves by rail as the nation is crisscrossed by 140,000 miles of track.
As for dot.coms, some of the old ones died out but new ones keep popping up, don’t they?
What these stock market crashes — bear markets as they call them — do is winnow the market. The strong survive. The weak don’t. Nobody is too big to fail. Ask Lehman Brothers how that works.
Or Enron.
Read the whole thing.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian at New York University, and the author of the book, “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” She has studied the backsliding of democracy, from the US to Russia, and elsewhere.
In a wide-ranging interview, she told Insider that in light of the January 6 hearings, Trump might have to be prosecuted in order to save American democracy ahead of the 2024 election. In that context, she said that DeSantis could take his place as a populist nominee…
“Now, if that does happen to Trump — DeSantis has already absorbed all the lessons of Trump”…
“He’s clearly readying himself for a national run, whether it’s in 2024 or later. And he’s a very dangerous individual,” Ben Ghiat said. “He’s dangerous because he is equally repressive, but doesn’t have the baggage of Trump. It’s hard to have the baggage of Trump.”
So basically if DeSantis wins in 2024 we slip right back into fascism.
The corporations will all take his side, he’ll have full control of the media, and we’ll be at war with Russia.
It’ll be bad, folks.
BAD!!!
So don’t you dare vote for DeSantis in 2024.
Because if you do, we might finally get our country back.
DeSantis is one strange fascist, given that he’s pushing back hard against the DNC-corporatist Gleichschaltung on multiple fronts.
WELL, HE ONLY SHOT A REPUBLICAN AND THAT’S APPROVED BEHAVIOR NOWADAYS: Washington, DC Judge Declares John Hinckley Jr. a Free Man.
MORE THOUGHTS ON History Without Tears.
LIVE AT 4PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, VodkaPundit, Jen van Laar.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Abbott closes infant formula plant in Michigan again after flooding.
READER FAVORITE: LED Floor Lamp. #CommissionEarned
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:
● Shot: What does a Biden presidency mean for the world?
—Headline, the Financial Times, January 19th, 2021.
● Chaser: An age of real wealth destruction.
—Headline, the Financial Times, yesterday.
TBH, IT WAS NEVER THAT GREAT: RIP Internet Explorer, and thanks for all the memes: Microsoft bids a long-coming farewell to a legacy browser.
THE HARDEST WORKING WOMAN IN POLITICS! Biden gives Kamala Harris another job: VP will now head an online harassment task force to add to her portfolio that includes the border and voting rights.
Flashback: “On the latest Editors podcast, I floated the somewhat-tongue-in-cheek theory that Joe Biden has set Kamala Harris up to fail, a passive-aggressive form of revenge for her shivving him in that first Democratic presidential-primary debate.”
To be fair, there’s enough failure to go around for everybody in this administration.
EARTHQUAKE: Biden Is ‘Too Old’ and Should ‘Step Aside,’ Says NYT Insider. “Leibovich’s column isn’t quite Henry II asking, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ But politically, it’s close.”
FOURTH TIME’S THE CHARM: NASA says it’s ready for a fourth attempt to fuel the massive SLS rocket.
THAT’S RICH: World’s first trillionaires could be from Texas. “A new report published by the software company Tipalti Approve estimates that newly relocated Texas resident, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, could become the world’s first trillionaire by 2024. Houston native and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell could become a trillionaire by 2033.”
WHOM THE GODS DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE NIXONIAN: How one-third of “The Watergate Three” got written out of journalism history.
In the spring of 1976, the Post’s Watergate team gathered for a private screening of a nearly finished cut. The men in the room saw themselves reshaped on screen into big-name stars. Robert Redford played Woodward; Dustin Hoffman played Bernstein. Three Post editors were portrayed by award-winning character actors: Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee, Martin Balsam as Howard Simons, and Jack Warden as Harry Rosenfeld.
Most of them were happy with their portrayals. (Robards won an Oscar playing Bradlee, despite barely 10 minutes of screen time.) But Simons was hurt deeply by the way the film made him seem like a mere functionary under Bradlee; in reality, Bradlee was only lightly involved in the story until months after the break-in. One critic noted that Simons “is made to sound like a fool who wanted them taken off the story” when in reality he was “the reporters’ strongest defender.” (Simons was later curator of the Nieman Foundation until his death from pancreatic cancer in 1989. At his memorial service, Woodward apologized for how Simons was portrayed in the movie.)
But [Barry] Sussman, the leader of the Watergate Three, wasn’t portrayed inaccurately — he just wasn’t portrayed at all. He’d been written out of the movie entirely.1 Filmmakers said they were worried that having three middle-aged white-guy editors on screen was already confusing for the audience, and four would’ve been too much.
But that it was Sussman they chose to cut — the editor most involved in the story from Day 1 — was galling to many, both in and out of the Post. When director Alan Pakula was doing his initial research for the film, both Simons and Rosenfeld had told him that, “if any one individual at the Post was deserving of a Pulitzer for the newspaper’s Watergate coverage…it was Barry Sussman.”
“Of all the filmmakers’ real and imagined derelictions, the elimination of Sussman as a character was the one that bothered Post staffers most,” Post film critic Gary Arnold wrote in his review. “Indeed, it has proved a more serious drawback than one might have guessed, because the picture needs a rumpled, avuncular, dogged editorial type to contrast with Robards’ flamboyant Bradlee and to supply some lucid updating and recapping of information as we go along.”
“As history, this is inexcusable,” wrote Jim Mann of The Baltimore Sun, “because it expunges from the record the editor who worked most intimately and directly with the reporters in the early days of Watergate.”
Post reporter Timothy Robinson told the Chicago Daily News he’d almost boycotted the movie because of Sussman’s omission. “The real hero isn’t even in it,” he said. “He was the guy who kept pushing and pushing that story.”
“When the celebrification of Watergate hit, Barry Sussman got cut out,” Mann, a former Post reporter, would say later. “If you take the hurt that Howard Simons felt, and you multiply that hurt by a thousand, you get to Barry Sussman.” In 1992, the Post itself would call Sussman’s omission “the most grievous example” of the movie’s “factual deficiencies.”2
After the film, the break between Sussman and Woodstein was total. Shepard describes the movie as having done “permanent psychic damage” to Sussman. Thirty years later, when she called Sussman to interview him about Woodward and Bernstein, his reply was: “I don’t have anything good to say about either one of them.”
* * * * * * * *
It’s more than a little ironic that Barry died less than two weeks before the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, a moment that will be endlessly mined for content. The scandal will likely be remembered at least as much through myth — Robert Redford questioning Hal Holbrook in a parking garage — as through reality. Hollywood wrote Barry out of Watergate; mortality wrote him out of its anniversary. There’s plenty for journalists to celebrate about that particular Story of the Century; let’s just remember the cast of characters wasn’t a short one.
As Max Holland wrote in the Weekly Standard right around this time in 2017 in “The Woodstein Tapes:”
The truth was that All the President’s Men was a fabulistic account of a newspaper procedural, part and parcel of what was then called the New Journalism. It presented a sanitized and often trivialized account of what had gone on inside and outside the Post—or what Barry Sussman described to Pakula as a “modified, limited hang out,” intentionally parroting John Ehrlichman’s infamous phrase about the tactic of presenting misleading information in order to divert attention from the real facts. In particular, Deep Throat was a fiction—not in the sense of a completely invented character—but in the motives attributed to him.
What Woodward and Bernstein conveniently left out of their explanation to Pakula—either because they were all-too-acutely aware of it or were inexcusably ignorant of it—was that this last rendezvous had coincided with [Mark] Felt’s abrupt departure from the FBI because he was suspected of leaking to the press. He had never talked to Woodward out of a concern for the office of the presidency or the bureau, much less the law or morality. He had leaked to damage the reputations of his rivals for the FBI directorship, which he coveted above all things. In May 1973, years of scheming had finally come to naught, and if he wasn’t experiencing a nervous breakdown that night he was close to one.
Woodward and Bernstein, of course, could hardly fess up: It would have been impossible to do so without providing Pakula with a serious clue to Deep Throat’s identity, and they were intent on keeping his name secret. More importantly, the mythology of Deep Throat-as-whistleblower had become central to their book and their reputations—and soon it would be central to the movie. So the duo kept up the pretense that Felt was a truth-teller and they had been in danger. Pakula faithfully recreated the paranoia in the film’s penultimate scene, careful, as Redford counseled, not to deliver the message “with hysterics.”
And “Woodstein” apparently didn’t mind a 138 minute gap in the film for Sussman, as well.
Related: From Glenn: Nixon’s Revenge. “But ultimately, that tolerance—and even the ruling class self-policing—was the product of deep-seated security in power. The liberal establishment of that era, which had crushed Sen. Barry Goldwater’s campaign like a bug, saw no one who might challenge it. This is why Nixon’s election was so traumatic for them. Like Donald Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, the election of a Republican seemed somehow fundamentally wrong. Republicans in Congress could do things, and could even occasionally snatch a short-lived majority. But after four Roosevelt inaugurations, and a string of Democratic presidents interrupted only by Dwight Eisenhower, who could have had the nomination of either party and who showed no inclination to interfere with the post-New Deal federal gravy train, the presumption was that the Executive and the bureaucracy would stay essentially Democratic forever. Then, Nixon. Not the Camelot-redux hoped for with Bobby Kennedy, or even the party-establishment regime promised by Hubert Humphrey, but Nixon. A man from a small college instead of the Ivy League, a sometimes-awkward introvert, a fervent anti-communist when anti-communism was seen as declassé, Nixon was very much not our kind, dear.”
(Bumped.)
BEER: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Men’s gut health improves by drinking lager beer, study suggests. “The small study, published Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, found that healthy men who drank one alcoholic or non-alcoholic lager daily developed a more diverse set of gut microbes, which is associated with a lower risk of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Another Month, Another Record Number of Border Apprehensions by CBP.
BORDER PATROL AGENTS ‘FURIOUS’ BIDEN ADMIN TO PUNISH THEM OVER FAKE MIGRANT-WHIPPING INCIDENT:
You’ll recall the incident that occurred last September at the US-Mexico border when photographers caught agents on horseback using their long reins to control their horses as they tried to slow the onslaught of migrants illegally crossing the Rio Grande river into our country.
The Biden administration immediately drew conclusions, saying the agents were “whipping” the migrants as if they were slaves. “To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped – it’s outrageous,” Joe Biden told reporters after the photographs surfaced. “I promise you, those people will pay.”
The controversy was quickly debunked, and the agents were cleared of wrongdoing. So, what’s the poor Biden Administration to do? Punish them for “administrative violations,” of course.
Fox News reported Tuesday that the Department of Homeland Security will discipline multiple horseback Border Patrol agents in the debunked “whipping” of Haitian migrants story. Already suffering from low morale due to record migrant surges at the US-Mexico border, agents are reportedly “furious” over the decision.
Why? Because they know they’re being made into scapegoats for the failed border policy of the Biden administration.
Why, it’s as if: We are governed by Twitter. “[Fox reporter Bill Miselugin] went on to state that despite the investigation clearing them, the agents will be charged with ‘administrative violations.’ Could there be a more crystalline example of the Biden administration setting federal policy according to the whims of Twitter? Perhaps this might partially explain why the person in charge currently sits at a 38.7 approval rating — given that a good majority of the population are not equipped with Twitter accounts.”
“TATER IS TOAST:” ‘Down To Weeks If Not Days:’ Brian Stelter To Get Pink Slip: Report. “Management is confident Stelter is the one sharing the internal pushback to fellow media reporters while simultaneously stirring discontent within the ranks.”
HE SAYS WHAT HE’S TOLD TO SAY: Does Joe Biden Even Understand What LGBTQ Is?
POLITICO: Latino Dems furious at DCCC, party leadership over Texas loss. (Link safe; goes to Ed Morrissey):
Democrats are also talking about “drag queens in every school,” too. Now that’s an issue that preoccupies voters in the RGV and in American households everywhere.
Democrats are turning themselves into the Weird Party, and even in good times that would be a strange choice. But with Joe Biden busily creating crises that he can’t handle and Democrats doing nothing but carrying his water, voters have some damned good reasons to toss Weird Party incumbents out on their ear, or another figurative body part. Republicans are far from perfect, but at least Republicans are talking about issues that matter outside the solons of Academia and progressive drum circles.
And speaking of “the Weird Party:”
IT’S NOT SO MUCH FOOLISHNESS AS CORRUPTION: Biden’s Bottomless Energy Foolishness.
A MAJOR REASON HUNTER BIDEN’S LAPTOP MUST BE INVESTIGATED AND THE CROOKS TRIED AND CONVICTED: Political Corruption and Injustice Threaten U.S. National Security.
Bottom line: The sellout of fundamental American values by U.S. political and scientific elites for Chinese cash does strategic damage to America just as Pearl Harbor and 9/11 did psychological and operational damage. Professors; political creeps; the universities that debase and ignore American constitutional, political and cultural values — these craven actors betray the values that underpin the free and productive system that spurred and supported their individual and corporate successes.
They also undermine the sources of America’s domestic defense and international security.
Check it out.
KRUISER: Welcome to Secular Relativist Hell. “The consequences of fragile progressive idiots believing that the world should bend itself to fit subjective kumbaya criteria are far-ranging and absolutely poisonous.”
STRATEGYPAGE INTEL UPDATE: Ukrainian Treasures.
The war in Ukraine has produced another bonanza of Russian weapons for the U.S. Air Force to scrutinize. For over half a century the U.S. Air Force has been on the lookout for Russian aircraft, missiles and electronic systems that were operational or could be made operational for testing. Ukraine is currently providing everything but aircraft to evaluate. That’s fine because Russia hasn’t produced any scary and mysterious combat aircraft since the Cold War ended. Electronics and missile systems are another matter.
The post has a short history lesson about U.S. efforts to obtain captured or stolen enemy aircraft and equipment
THE ENDLESS ECHOES OF BIDEN’S AFL-CIO SPEECH: Powerline’s Scott Johnson continues the deconstruction of Biden’s world disorder as he examines James Bovard’s New York Post debunking of Biden’s lies and a relevant Byron York column on Biden’s inflation and Jimmy Carter’s.
READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro. #CommissionEarned
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Two-Thirds of Americans Say Bidenflation Is Eating Through Their Savings.
HINT: IT ISN’T THE GOOFY UNARMED GUY IN THE VIKING HELMET. Who’s the Real Threat to Democracy?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LOCKDOWN EDITION: COVID-19 lockdown resulted in lower grades, campus initiative finds.
SPACE: Has China found alien technosignatures from space? “The FAST telescope in Pingtang County, Guizhou, southwest China has a diameter of 1,600 feet and it’s been listening to many stars known to have exoplanets. This week, the researchers in charge of the project announced that somebody might be out there after all. They’ve detected ‘suspicious’ signals that may be technosignatures from an alien civilization beaming information out into the cosmos.”
HISTORY WITHOUT TEARS wouldn’t be very interesting.
DECLINING PUBLIC TRUST IN NON-PROFITS: Capital Research Center’s Michael Hartmann looks at new data showing a decline in confidence in the non-profit sector. Even among Democrats, significantly less than half, 44 percent, say they have confidence in non-profits, GOPers and the general public 10 points below that.
Among the frequently cited reasons for the declining trust is “inappropriate political agendas.” Since the non-profit sector — defined as tax-exempt foundations and corporate charitable giving units — is and long has been overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat, there’s a message here.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: LOL…Dem Fetish Boy Fauci Has the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu. “I’m not really delighted that Fauci has the ‘rona, and I’m glad his symptoms are mild. Everybody who has whatever variant we’re on has mild symptoms though. That fact hasn’t prevented Fauci from banging the drum of gloom and insisting that death is still just around the corner, however.”
GOING UNWOKE: Crypto Exchange CEO Calls Employees ‘Triggered,’ Bans Calling Things ‘Racist’ at Work. “In one section, Kraken insists it is founded in ‘dangerous’ ideas: the ideas that free markets must reign supreme, that people must be free to say what they want, and a host of other libertarian beliefs that boil down to protection of private property, self-defense, and autonomy. ‘This should be no surprise to Americans as these rights can all be derived from the US constitution,’ Kraken’s manifesto explains at one point. ‘Our ability to drive crypto adoption in the world depends on these rights. Not everyone needs to personally hold these beliefs to enlist as a Krakenite but these beliefs are a core component of our culture.'”
IF YOU’RE AN AVERAGE AMERICAN, EVERYONE COUNTS MORE THAN YOU WITH DEMOCRATS, EVEN DOGS, CATS AND FLEAS: Democrats choose Fido and Muffy over inflation-shocked public.
At a time when many are looking for help on raging inflation and who to blame for record-high gas prices, oversight Democrats are turning to pet collars, drawing fire from frustrated Republicans.
On Wednesday, with gas at an all-time high of $5.014 a gallon and inflation at 8.6%, the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s subcommittee charged with looking out for consumers will hold its first hearing of the year to discuss Seresto’s flea collar for dogs and cats. . . .
Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to focus on high gas prices and inflation, which Democrats and the Biden administration have failed to curb.
Flea collars? Someone needs to tell the Democrats that dog won’t hunt.
WELL, TO BE FAIR, THAT’S BECAUSE HE’S A COMMIE MORON: Piketty Calls For ‘Participatory Socialism’: $150,000/Person Universal Inheritance, ‘Confiscatory’ Income And Wealth Taxes.
I mean, look around: We’re seeing the results of lefty economic policies everywhere right now, and they suck. Back to Milton Friedman!
IF YOU LIVE IN THIS WORLD, YOU’RE FEELING THE CHANGE OF THE GUARD: Here’s Why the South Texas Special Election Spells Doom for Dems in November: Republicans send first Mexican-born woman to Congress in Dem stronghold.
See, the “let’s import lots of Hispanics who’ll vote Democrat,” and the “let’s make Democrats the party of trans rights and grooming” strategies don’t sit well together.
DEAL OF THE DAY: trtl Pillow – Scientifically Proven Super Soft Neck Support Travel Pillow. #CommissionEarned
THEY CAN’T WIN IF THEY CAN’T CHEAT: Why The Biden Admin Wants Censorship Of Renewable Energy Critics. “There is no question that social media companies including Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Twitter, and Alphabet (Google and YouTube) are well within their legal right to censor inaccurate and harmful information. But over the last two years, Big Tech has repeatedly censored individuals for communicating accurate information, including on covid and climate change.”
IT’S WEIRD THAT ALL THE CORPORATIONS GOT SO MUCH GREEDIER AFTER BIDEN TOOK OFFICE: Biden: I’m demanding more output from greedy refiners to fight inflation.
RANCID ANNIVERSARY: 60 Years Ago This Week: the Birth of the New Left.
JOEL KOTKIN: Forget College. Skilled Trades Are the Future of the U.S. Economy. “Students are getting the message: A survey taken in 2020 found that only a third of undergraduates see their educations as advancing their career goals, and barely one in five think the BA is worth the cost. The basic reality is this: The upfront investment is high (tuition fees for four-year public colleges have increased by an average of 213 percent in real terms between 1988 and 2017) but the return on investment seems to be failing.”
FROM DAVE FREER: Boy’s Surface. #CommissionEarned
She thought she just needed the latest and best of automated houses to be happy.
She’s about to find out that a technology that can give you everything you want, can take away everything you need.
An amusing short story of technological over-reach.
THIS WORK IS A SHORT STORY.
WELL, GOOD. ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT: New research suggests Earth’s magnetic polarity isn’t reversing.
THEY WEAR THE WRONG KIND OF POLO SHIRTS? Today’s blacklisted American: Biden administration purging conservatives from FBI.
Can’t dream up a “Patriot Front” if you have real patriots in the organization…. They might object to the maligning of the nation’s people
FORGET IT, JACK, THEY’RE A CULT: Why the left doesn’t handle disagreement.
ACTUAL AND FOR REAL TERRORISM: Jane’s Revenge Plans More Pro-Life Center Attacks.
I WANT BIDEN’S CLIMATE CZARINA HELD UP BY HER ANKLES UNTIL ENOUGH BLOOD RUSHES TO HER BRAIN: Biden’s Climate Czarina Wants Big Tech Censorship of Climate-Related Debate.
I mean, one hopes she would then have one rational thought. No?
DUDE, YOU JUST CALLED US THE COOLEST THING, EVER! ‘Old Politics’: Biden Recycles ‘Ultra-MAGA’ Scare Tactics Over Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Your consultants are dumb.
Ultra maga, assemble! Let’s rock.
SOMEONE GET SCHIFF OUT OF SIGHT. HE MAKES ME NAUSEATED: Democrats’ January 6th Show Trial Episode 2 Falls Dramatically in Ratings and Episode 3 is Postponed.
If he had any idea how much he looks like a self-satisfied and yet moronic evil pixie, he’d never go out without a paper bag over his head.
YE-HAA, THERE’S SOMETHING STUPIDER THAN THE BIDEN JUNTA: EU Releases Frozen Funding To Palestinian Authority for Textbooks Inciting Antisemitism and Jihad.
HOW CONVENIENT: China Uses COVID-19 App to Prevent Run on Rural Banks.
Covid=Tyranny flu.
IN 3-4 MONTHS WE CAN BUY THAT GRAIN FROM THE RUSSIANS: Biden calls Zelensky as Poland says US grain plan may take 3-4 months.
June 15, 2022
ANALYSIS: TRUE. McConnell is going the wrong way on guns. “With all due respect to Mitch McConnell, Republicans shouldn’t even be talking about a gun-control deal unless that deal includes doing something about the fundamental problem: The utter refusal of the federal government and most Democrat-run states and counties to prosecute ordinary, common gun crimes.”
Democrats don’t want to disarm criminals, they want to disarm Republicans.
DEM DOMESTIC TERROR UPDATE: Feds indict man found with gun, pepper spray, knife near Kavanaugh’s home.
UKRAINE: RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 15.
Russian forces launched ground assaults in Severodonetsk and settlements in its vicinity but have not taken full control over the city as of June 15.
Russian forces launched largely unsuccessful offensive operations around the T1302 Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway in an effort to cut Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Lysychansk.
Russian forces continued efforts to advance along the E40 highway to Slovyansk and southeast of Izyum.
Russian and Ukrainian forces continued to fight in northeastern settlements around Kharkiv City.
Russian forces continued to fortify fallback positions in Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts, while undertaking defensive measures to strengthen Russian presence in the Black Sea.The Kremlin and proxy republics continue to pursue ad hoc annexation policies in occupied territories.
Much more at the link.
OPEN THREAD: Relax. You’re quite safe here.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Woodward and Bernstein didn’t bring down a president in Watergate – but the myth that they did lives on.
However popular, the heroic-journalist myth is a vast exaggeration of the effect of their work.
Woodward and Bernstein did disclose financial links between Nixon’s reelection campaign and the burglars arrested June 17, 1972, at headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in what was the signal crime of Watergate.
They publicly tied prominent Washington figures, such as Nixon’s former attorney general, John Mitchell, to the scandal.
They won a Pulitzer Prize for the Post.
But they missed decisive elements of Watergate, notably the payment of hush money to the burglars and the existence of Nixon’s White House tapes.
Nonetheless, the heroic-journalist myth became so entrenched that it could withstand disclaimers by Watergate-era principals at the Post such as Graham. Even Woodward has disavowed the heroic-journalist interpretation, once telling an interviewer that “the mythologizing of our role in Watergate has gone to the point of absurdity, where journalists write … that I, single-handedly, brought down Richard Nixon.
“Totally absurd.”
With the upcoming 50th anniversary of Watergate on Friday, here’s a related anniversary as well: 60 Years Ago This Week: the Birth of the New Left.
If a New Left emerged in 1962, that means there had to be an Old Left. The Old Left was dynastic — think Roosevelts and Kennedys — and aristocratic. More importantly, it was anticommunist.
Mohler points out that there wasn’t a ton of difference between the Old Left and conservatives in the first half of the 20th century.
“One of the things I often do with my graduate students is show them the 1960 platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States,” he says. “You go to a year like 2016? They are radically different. But in 1960, you’ll have a hard time drawing distinctions between the Democratic and the Republican parties on many policies. Because during the era of the Cold War, and in the wake of the New Deal, the two parties were pretty close together.”
By contrast, the New Left, as the SDS represented, was populist, youth-led, and radical. The SDS itself stemmed from campus socialist organizations. It took advantage of the youthful energy and idealism of that generation in order to push for change.
At the time, the SDS didn’t make much of a splash. The media didn’t herald it as a major event, and it didn’t create immediate ripples. But what came after it did change the decade of the ’60s and the era that followed.
The SDS and the Port Huron Statement begat the anti-Vietnam War movement, the activism of earnest young civil rights activists, and the “free-speech movement” on college campuses. They also served as the genesis of the Weather Underground, the Chicago Seven, the sexual revolution, and the gay rights movement.
As radical as the New Left was at the time, its tenets are mainstream in today’s Democratic party (and some of its ideas might even come across as outdated to this crop of leftists). Mohler puts it this way: “many of the ideas that were considered radical 60 years ago are now absolutely mainstream, and for that matter, nowhere near the left of what we might call the New New Left in the United States. In particular, taking a snapshot of the Democratic Party.”
Flashback: Amity Shlaes’ ‘Great Society:’ How Poverty Won America’s War on Poverty. There’s a reason why its epigraph is, “Nothing is new, it is just forgotten.”
THE ARTICLE IS PAYWALLED, BUT THE HEADLINE SAYS IT ALL: Europe, In Panic Over Energy, Is Suddenly Cozying Up To Israel.
DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMAN CALLS ELON MUSK ‘WHITE SUPREMACIST’ FOR THE DUMBEST REASON IMAGINABLE:
Another day, another absurd example of identity politics run amok. Far-left Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York just blasted Elon Musk as a ‘white supremacist’ for what might actually be the dumbest reason imaginable.
“Elon Musk is not a leader,” Bowman wrote on Twitter. “He’s just another Republican billionaire who supports white supremacy and authoritarianism because he doesn’t want his workers to unionize or to pay his fair share in taxes. The GOP just tried to end democracy and now he’s supporting them.” (Emphasis mine).
What triggered this little Twitter meltdown? Musk tweeted that he had voted for a Republican candidate—who is Hispanic.
“Elon Musk Proves White Supremacy By Voting for Hispanic Congressional Candidate’: You might honestly think this was a parody Babylon Bee headline if you didn’t know better.
In sharp contrast: Ron DeSantis Has the Perfect Response to Getting the Elon Musk Nod. “I welcome support from African Americans. What can I say?”
Heh, indeed.
ROGER SIMON: Liz Cheney and Jan. 6 Committee Demonstrate How Hate Makes You Stupid.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo., for now) is an object lesson. Cheney comes from a rich conservative tradition. Her mother Lynne wrote an estimable biography of James Madison. Early in her career, Liz herself consistently voted for and advocated for conservative causes.
Then, along came Mr. Hate.
The instigator: Donald Trump said mean things about her father, blaming him for the Iraq War. I will admit that Trump’s statements were a tad excessive since Dick Cheney, although clearly a key player, was far from alone in supporting that ill-conceived war. An extraordinary percentage did, including most of Washington, the pundit class (yours truly included), and, on occasion, Trump himself.
We were hoping the war would turn Iraq into Denmark. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Trump used that as a lynchpin in his 2016 campaign, attacking Dick Cheney, among others, but Liz reacted to Trump with a level of hate out of all proportion to the situation. A political campaign was underway, the likes of which she had participated in since childhood, and like it or not, insults were part of Trump’s political style. The businessman had insulted all sorts of people, many of whom (like Sens. Rubio and Cruz) now play ball with him on a regular basis.
Not Liz. She made an alliance with people whose views she considered anathema for all of her previous life just to get Trump. It was hate taken to the nth power.
As it turns out, those people she made an alliance with—the Jan. 6 Committee of Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson, Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Zoe Lofgren, and so forth—themselves also permeated with the most obvious hate— have failed miserably at their endeavor and now have abruptly postponed their third Show Trial telecast. The previous telecasts were a ratings disaster and, in some cases, they got caught lying. (“Adam Schiff lie?” Mon Dieu!)
Further, if you believe that eventually, the truth comes out, and I do (mostly), sooner or later the supposed “insurrection” of Jan. 6 will be seen by a majority of our citizens as an FBI put-up job. Many do already.
Liz Cheney, whether she knows it or not, is headed for oblivion after the Wyoming Republican primary. She has no real political friends—does she think the likes of Raskin will support her after this is over? He’s politically closer to Pol Pot. And as of this moment, it looks as if Trump will still be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 with a good chance of victory. Everything Liz did was for naught.
Speaking of January 6th: Democrats Demand We Care More About Jan. 6 Than They Do. “What Democrats are engaged in today is far more cynical. Opposition to the reckless myth-making that convinced thousands of Trump-backing Americans to ransack the Capitol is, we’re regularly told, something that should transcend partisan politics. The Democratic Party’s electoral tacticians are conceding that the unprecedented attack on the seat of government is just another political football. Most troubling, there’s no guarantee that the paranoid MAGA-backed candidates that the Democratic Party is promoting will lose their respective races. In a political environment that produces wave elections, surprises happen.”
SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD:
Earlier: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. An Elephant Is Not a Legal Person, New York Court Rules in High-Profile Case.
Then again, in a legal environment in which a bee is a fish, not to be taken for granted.
IT’S CLOWNS ALL THE WAY DOWN: J6 Committee Throws Temper Tantrum After Capitol Police Debunks One of Their Claims.
CHANGE: Mexican-Born Texas House Candidate Rides Rightward Latino Drift to Historic Victory.
Related: GOP’s historic win in Texas portends nationwide ‘red wave’ disaster for Democrats in November.
But as Glenn likes to say, “Don’t get cocky. If you care about this election, you need to be donating and/or volunteering. Commenting on Internet blogs doesn’t count.”
DOMESTIC TERROR: “Open season”: Pro-abortion radicals threaten violence against pro-life outfits after 30-day “deadline” expires.
Will Merrick Garland sic the FBI on them, the way he did on parents speaking out at school board meetings?
Haha, I crack myself up.
TITANIC REARRANGES DECK CHAIRS: Biden hires former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms as top adviser — will it make a difference?
“MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE:” Consumer Sentiment Hits Absolute Rock-Bottom All-Time Historic Low as The Economy Enters a Recession.
From John Sexton, a Financial Times survey of economists finds that a majority expect a recession next year.
Next year?
Okay sure whatever.
The US economy will tip into a recession next year, according to nearly 70 per cent of leading academic economists polled by the Financial Times…Jay Powell, the Fed chair, has conceded that the central bank’s efforts to moderate inflation may cause “some pain”, leading to a “softish” landing that sees the unemployment rate rise “a few ticks”.
But many of the economists polled are concerned about a more adverse outcome given the severity of the inflation situation and the fact that monetary policy will need to shift towards much tighter settings in short order to address it.
Yeah so we didn’t have to wait until next year: At least according to the Atlanta Fed tracker, the economy is predicted to post a 0.0% growth rate in the second quarter, which, combined with the negative growth in the first quarter, means we’re gone two quarters of zero or negative growth.
(Corrected: This is a predicted growth rate not a “posted” one as I said originally.)
We’re in a recession.
Related: Fed hikes rates by 0.75 percentage point, biggest increase since 1994.
AND UNDERESTIMATE HOW MUCH THEY EAT. Most Americans overestimate how healthy their food choices are.
WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF VIOLENCE? House GOP calls on Garland to investigate attacks on anti-abortion groups as domestic terrorism.
“MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE:” Reuters: Biden demands oil companies explain lack of gasoline as prices rise.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday demanded oil companies explain why they aren’t putting more gasoline on the market, sharply escalating his rhetoric against industry as he faces pressure over rising prices.
Biden wrote to executives from Marathon Petroleum Corp, Valero Energy Corp, and Exxon Mobil Corp and complained they had cut back on oil refining to pad their profits, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
“At a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable,” Biden wrote, adding the lack of refining was driving gas prices up faster than oil prices.
“The lack of refining capacity – and resulting unprecedented refinery profit margins – are blunting the impact of the historic actions my Administration has taken to address Vladimir Putin’s Price Hike and are driving up costs for consumers.”
The letter is also being sent to Phillips 66, Chevron Corp, BP and Shell, a White House official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
Joe Biden, it’s time to meet Joe Biden!
● Biden’s plan to cancel Keystone pipeline signals a rocky start with Canada.
—The Washington Post, January 19th, 2021.
● Biden pulls 3 offshore oil lease sales, curbing new drilling this year.
—The Washington Post, May 12th.
● Biden administration won’t appeal judge’s ruling revoking Gulf of Mexico drilling leases.
—The Washington Post, February 28th.
Flashbacks: Why Aren’t Democrats Dancing for Joy About Sky-High Gas Prices?
In the service of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats have long openly worked to raise the price of fossil fuel energy. They have done so by proposing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, higher leasing fees, and other measures to jack up costs so people burn less of it. This is why Barack Obama said, in answer to a related question about electricity, that his energy plan would make prices “necessarily skyrocket.” This is why Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna praised BP’s CEO less than six months ago for pledging to reduce oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. Reductions in oil production and rising gasoline prices are part of the Democrats’ agenda and the Paris climate agenda.
There’s even more to it than that. Over the past decade, the Democrats’ overt hostility toward fossil fuels has even driven companies in the industry to sideline production, purely for public relations purposes, while prioritizing meaningless, politically correct carbon emissions goals. How can Democrats suddenly feign outrage at their incredible success in influencing the industry?
Is it a mystery why Democrats aren’t doing a sack dance and celebrating the salvation of planet earth?
There’s the small matter of their political survival, of course. It would be unseemly — like doing a jig at an Irish funeral — to celebrate other people’s pain. And it would cost many Democrats who are secretly jubilant about high gas prices their political careers.
Instead, Democrats are pretending to look for a way to “ease consumers’ pain.”
In September of 2019, after CNN’s seven hour “climate change town hall,” Bryan Preston wrote, “Seriously, if you see all of the above — which is just a sample — and vote for any of these people for any office at any level, it’s on you. If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela.”
And as Kate of Small Dead Animals wrote after the CNN horror show, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t mean it.”
● Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?
● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.
● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”
Exit quote: “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”
In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden: As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
So is it fair to ask if Biden is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.
“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”
● Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
Related: Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.
Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned
(Classical reference in headline.)
UPDATE AND BUMP (FROM GLENN): Flashback: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
OKAY, GROOMER: Michigan AG says ‘drag queens make everything better,’ suggests ‘drag queen for every school:’ report.
[Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel] the first openly gay person elected to statewide office in Michigan, made the comments during a civil rights conference while speaking out against what she describes as efforts to divide Americans, Craig Mauger of The Detroit News reported on Twitter.
“Drag queens make everything better. Drag queens are fun,” Nessel said, according to Mauger.
“A drag queen for every school,” she added.
Mauger wrote that Nessel “acknowledged the ‘drag queen for every school’ line had not been poll tested.”
Kinsley Gaffe alert!
VIRGINIA POSTREL: Purity, Sorcery, and Cancel Culture. “The quest for purity informs cancel culture. It pushes partisans to ever-greater extremes, even when those positions are politically self-defeating. It turns historical heroes /into villains and closes nuclear power plants in the face of climate change. It makes the ideal the enemy of the improved, the perfect the exterminator of the better. If we want to understand our cultural moment, we need to think seriously about purity. . . . Purity is about identifying and eliminating contaminants—anomalies that are sources of danger. The danger may be physical, spiritual, cultural, or moral. To purify is to purge whatever is out of place. It establishes what belongs by banishing what does not. ‘The quest for purity is pursued by rejection,’ writes anthropologist Mary Douglas in her landmark 1966 book Purity and Danger. . . . The 21st-century American version of sorcery allegations are charges of racism, sexism, harassment, and similar offenses. Many examples of ‘cancel culture’ occur in enclaves—fan groups, for instance, or loose professional associations. In 2020, the online knitting community was torn apart by what British journalist Gavin Haynes dubbed a ‘purity spiral,’ in which people who thought of themselves as kind-hearted liberals were suddenly ostracized and boycotted for alleged white supremacy.”
I don’t care for puritanism in any form.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: 30-year mortgage rate surges to 6.28%, up from 5.5% just a week ago.
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