October 13, 2024

WHY ON EARTH IS THE HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS PRO-VENEZUELAN GANGS? J.D. Vance Destroys ABC News Anchor for Downplaying Immigrant Gang Violence.

I can’t imagine George’s former(?) boss agreeing with this policy:

As we’ve noted before, Bill’s clip from 1995, and other past clips from Democrat grandees such as Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama with similar messages should be running in Trump adds with an “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message” tag tacked on.

Posted at 1:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

UNEXPECTEDLY: America’s New Millionaire Class: Plumbers and HVAC Entrepreneurs. Private equity is pouring money into skilled-trade small businesses; ‘Next thing you know, you’re running an empire.’

Aaron Rice has two logos tattooed on his left leg: one from the plumbing business he co-founded more than a decade ago, and another from the private-equity-backed company that recently bought it.

Few businesses are as vital to their customers as local plumbing, heating or air-conditioning companies—especially in places like Tucson, Ariz., where Rice works and residents sweltered in 100-degree heat most days this summer.

For years, Rice, 43 years old, was skeptical when out-of-state investors offered to buy his company. He assumed most of them knew little about skilled-trade work or his customers. They were just looking to make a buck. But in 2022, when approached by a local HVAC company backed by private equity, he changed his mind, figuring that they knew the business.

“The trades are hard work. A lot of today’s society, picking up a shovel is foreign to them,” he says.

Private equity, however, is no foreign player in the skilled trades these days. PE firms across the country have been scooping up home services like HVAC—that is, heating, ventilation and air conditioning—as well as plumbing and electrical companies. They hope to profit by running larger, more profitable operations.

Their growth marks a major shift, taking home-services firms away from family operators by offering mom-and-pop shops seven-figure and eight-figure paydays. It is a contrast from previous generations, when more owners handed companies down to their children or employees.

The wave of investment is minting a new class of millionaires across the country, one that small-business owners say is helping add more shine to working with a tool belt.

“You don’t need to go to Silicon Valley to have a successful career and entrepreneurial opportunities,” says Brian Rassel, a partner at the Detroit-based Huron Capital, which focuses on investments in service companies.

As Glenn wrote in the New York Post in January: The white-collar class derided mass layoffs among the blue-collar workers. It’s about to feel their pain.

People losing their jobs to AI is just the tip of the iceberg.

In the next decade, lots more people — possibly (gulp) including professors like me — will be facing potential replacement by machines.

It turns out that using your brain and not your hands isn’t as good a move as it may have once seemed.

People who work with their hands have some advantages.

If you want something done in the material world, you still need people.

(I replaced a toilet seat some time back while pondering these issues and reflected that neither an AI nor a worker in Bangalore could have taken that job.)

A lot of young Americans, especially males, are forgoing traditional college to enter the trades, as welders, plumbers, HVAC technicians and the like.

That’s probably smart. AI won’t be able to replace those jobs.

As Brian Wang notes, robots probably will, one day — but that day is nowhere near as close.

Elon Musk’s new Optimus robots may speed its arrival up, but likely not for at least several years into the future.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

ONE MAN’S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN’S FREEDOM FIGHTER, SLIGHT RETURN: CBS News Told Staffers Not To Refer to Hamas as ‘Terrorists.’

CBS News executives cautioned their journalists against referring to Hamas members as “terrorists” in a memo issued the day after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to the Free Press. It’s the latest embarrassment for the news organization, which is in turmoil amid a daily drip of disclosures about institutionalized anti-Israel bias as well as anti-Trump bias.

Thursday night, the Free Press published an excerpt of an email sent to reporters on October 8, 2023, with the subject, “Standards guidance: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

“Reporting on this weekend’s violence in Israel and Gaza requires a closer look at the language we use when describing events,” the email stated. “For instance, the U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist organization; however, suggesting an individual is a ‘terrorist’ may be inaccurate depending on the facts.”

The email also noted there are disagreements over whether the attack was “justified” in response to “Israeli occupation of their lands.” The message then said there are “others” who “believe this to be an unprovoked attack on Israel and, as such, Israel has every right to defend itself.”

A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed the guidance to the Sun. They said the goal of the guidance is to avoid generalizations about people in Gaza, such as labeling a doctor or nurse with the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry a terrorist without information they engaged in terrorism.

However, even the left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations notes Hamas has “put in place authoritarian institutions” that leave little room for flexibility or the ability to operate independently. Those who step out of line can face harsh punishments.

Additionally, the Israel Defense Forces have released video footage as evidence that Hamas has used civilian infrastructure such as hospitals as “command and control” centers and even possibly to hold hostages from the October 7 attack.

CBS News did not comment on the guidance.

As T. Becket Adams of NRO adds: CBS Makes a Mockery of ‘Standards.’

As incomprehensible as CBS’s approach to these back-to-back issues may be, one should not be surprised. This is hardly the first time the network has played fast and loose with its own unique and, apparently, proprietary set of journalism standards.

Recall that Gayle King, a news anchor, ruffled no feathers on May 26, 2020, when she declared following the death of George Floyd, “I am speechless. I am really, really speechless about what we’re seeing on television this morning. It feels to me like open season . . . and that sometimes it’s not a safe place to be in this country for black men.”

This pronouncement cleared the network’s bar for “impartiality”? Or did management reason that King was exempted from the usual standards regarding personal commentary because she is black, and the news upon which she was commenting involved a black man? If so, does this courtesy not extend to Dokoupil, who, as a Jew, might have a valuable perspective on matters affecting the life and death of Jews, as King presumably did for blacks?

And what are we to make of King’s CBS Mornings interview of the Israeli father of a child taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, in which she said, “Now this seems to be all about politics. What do you say about that? You know, you have innocent children and Palestinians who are dying, innocent Israeli children who are dying. And no one seems to be able to say, ‘Enough, stop that.’” To this, Tom Hand replied, in a tone of anguished exasperation, that he didn’t care about politics, he just wanted his Emily back. CBS’s Standards and Practices and Race and Culture units had nothing to say about this interaction? No all-hands reprimand for King’s “tone”?

The Dokoupil saga will likely get dumber before it eventually blows over. But let’s not lose sight of the big question underlying it. CBS executives claim Dokoupil failed to meet their exacting standards of journalistic excellence. They say this even though his colleagues have grilled guests with objectively inappropriate lines of questions, with zero internal pushback. These executives say this even as 60 Minutes openly violates the network’s interview production and editing standards, with zero explanation or defense provided.

All of this goes back to the underlying question: What standards?

It’s the Calvinball Broadcasting System. But is the clock ticking on its current woke insanity? The joke is on woke CBS News execs as new execs considering ‘blowing the place up.’

What is less public is how all this weirdness is impacting CBS’s future as an ongoing business, and most important, its pending sale to Skydance, an independent studio run by movie producer David Ellison of “Top Gun: Maverick” fame.

David’s dad, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, provides much of the money behind the deal and from what I gather, he’s not too happy about his latest acquisition.

If you don’t know Larry, here’s a primer: He’s one of the world’s richest men, and one of the most pro-Israel executives in corporate America — he’s buds with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

Let’s just say the people at Skydance and the Ellisons read the newspapers (particularly The Post, which I know for a fact).

They are powerless to do anything about what’s happening at CBS for now; the $28 billion deal to buy the network’s parent Paramount from the controlling Redstone family doesn’t close until sometime in the spring.

But they won’t be powerless for much longer. As one person who knows all the players at CBS’s new owners told me: “They’re thinking about blowing the place up.”

What exactly “blowing the place up” means, no one knows for sure. Will it result in the defenestration of CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and news-gathering chief Adrienne Roark, both of whom presided over the in-house thrashing of Dokoupil?

Hopefully Ellison won’t be as hands off in shaping CBS News as Jeff Bezos has been while the Washington Post spiraled out of control.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

TO BE FAIR, SHE’S ALWAYS BEEN PRO-BUSSING: The Univison Town Hall Imploding: They Flew in Audience Members.

[Michael Tracey] investigated Univision’s “town hall” and found half of the audience was flown in at the network’s expense, while the other half was brought in by a rent-an-audience company called FansOnQ.

It turns out, some “undecided” voters admitted to being Kamala Harris supporters.

“I already knew I was going to go for Kamala before the event, and now that just kind of solidified it… part of the reason I wanted to go was just fully support her,” one respondent said.

Everything about the Harris campaign is *FAKE.*

Worse than that, the U.S. and international media are helping her to fake it. This is Mexican collusion to commit election interference.

Tracey adds:

Tracey tried to interview some of the attendees:

However, a corporate dictate apparently came down prohibiting this. “We won’t be making them available,” Anna Negron, Director of Corporate Communications at TelevisaUnivision, told me when I asked if there would be an opportunity to interview said audience members. She would not elaborate on the reason for this strange secrecy. Reporter Mark Kellner of the New York Post asked Negron the same question, and was similarly dismissed.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Townhall’s Matt Vespa writes, adding, “We made fun of the fact that a teleprompter was in view during this event, which wouldn’t shock us since the vice president is a disaster without a script. Supposedly, that’s been debunked; she wasn’t using such a device for this event, but this revelation is frankly much worse.”

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

HEY, CONSIDERING HOW THE WOKE LEFT BEATS HIM UP EVERY YEAR AT THIS TIME, CAN YOU BLAME HIM? Christopher Columbus was secretly Jewish. DNA tests suggest explorer hid true identity due to rampant anti-Semitism across Europe.

Finally, the long-awaited Tucker Carlson interview of Ta-Nehisi Coates has a topic to explore!

UPDATE: Heh, indeed:

North Jersey residents might want to give the Gualtieri Crew a particularly wide berth right now:

Posted at 10:45 am by Ed Driscoll

CONSEQUENCES: Students who invaded Stanford president’s office and injured cop slapped with felony charges: Anti-Israel activists took over a building at Stanford University and thoroughly vandalized it before being arrested on Wednesday.. “The protesters are facing felony charges, and seniors in the group will not be allowed to graduate. . . . The activists, who included 11 current students, left graffiti throughout the Main Quad before barricading themselves in the office building, such as ‘Death 2 US,’ ‘F*** Amerikkka,’ and ‘Kill Cops.'”

It’s important to end the leftist culture of impunity.

Posted at 10:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE:

Posted at 9:19 am by Glenn Reynolds

LIKE KAMALA, HE’S NOT REALLY ONE OF THEM AND FEELS SUPERIOR, EVEN THOUGH HE PRETENDS: Barack Obama’s Tiresome Condescension Toward Black Men. “Obama’s broadside, which quickly went viral, was further proof of his status as the party’s resident scold.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Glenn Reynolds

CULTURE IS UPSTREAM OF POLITICS: MAGA songstress targets ‘war on men’ in latest viral tune.

The country singer who created MAGA’s theme song in “Trump Won” and had former President Donald Trump mouthing the words in her viral hit “The Chosen One” is targeting the so-called war on men in her latest tune.

Natasha Owens, whose “Trump Won” hit No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart, has just released “Gimme a Cowboy,” her team told Secrets.

In it, Owens sings about seeking a traditional relationship: “I’ll be the woman, you be the man, just like the good Lord planned.”

In a statement, Owens said she feels that today’s culture is quickly becoming anti-family and anti-male with its heightened focus on transgender efforts.

A rap song on this theme would help Trump more, perhaps, but still.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

DON’T GET COCKY:  The feeling may not last, but right now it does not seem impossible that the GOP will gain possession of  the White House and the Senate, and also retain the House of Representatives.  If so, I hope somebody on the Hill remembers my “Agenda for Congress” written two years ago.  These situations do not come around all that often (and they may to come around this time).  Still, the only way to take advantage of them is to be ready BEFORE they become established facts.

Posted at 8:20 am by Gail Heriot

PUNCHING HARD AT A VULNERABLE SPOT: About the Biden-HARRIS Military: Boffo New Trump Ad Dropped During Aurora Rally.

Ad here:

Related: I Went To The Trump Rally In Aurora Colorado. ” went to the Trump Rally in Aurora, Colorado and it was an illuminating, and interesting day. Especially when the media reports paint a very different picture. According to the media, how dare a Republican candidate for President use words like ‘war zone’ to describe Aurora, CO and its problem with illegal immigration gangs!”

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

EVERYTHING THEY TOLD YOU ABOUT COLUMBUS WAS BUNK: Rod Martin points out the crucial importance of two facts in understanding the significance of Columbus to the subsequent development of the New World.

First, the germs bearing the diseases brought to the New World by Columbus and subsequent Europeans, especially the Spanish, wiped out 80-90 percent of the native populations from Canada to Brazil. Much of North, Central and South America was unoccupied or only occasionally occupied.

Second, the Europeans didn’t even know about the existence of those germs bearing those diseases, therefore holding them responsible for “genocide of the Native inhabitants” is a myth used by power-hungry Leftist myth-makers to generate shame based on a whole sequence of derivative myths that are constantly used as a weapon against those feeling the shame.

Martin reprinted this essay that he originally penned in 2015 this weekend to commemorate Columbus Day on October 14. The facts Martin marshals are even more relevant today than they were in 2015.

Posted at 7:00 am by Mark Tapscott

October 12, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Make me proud.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds