CHANGE: End the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
If you want to defund them, cutting off federal funding isn’t enough. You need to stop state-run affiliate stationa from buying NPR and PBS programming.
January 17, 2025
SAVE TIME DOING LAUNDRY: True Classic 6 Pack, Men’s Short Sleeve Crew Neck T-Shirt. #CommissionEarned
IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Should Trump Bail Out the Fire Caltastrophe?
WELL, GOOD: U.K. announces new inquiries into decade-old cases of child sexual grooming after pressure sparked by Elon Musk tweet. “Britain’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced Thursday that there would be a number of new central government-backed local inquiries into years-old allegations of child grooming gangs, weeks after Elon Musk accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failings in relation to the handling of the crimes in a series of tweets. The crimes took place a decade ago when Starmer was the country’s top prosecutor.”
Still, it feels a bit like the fox investigating who raided the henhouse.
CHANGE: ATF Reverses ‘Zero Tolerance’ Enforcement Policy That Shut Down Hundreds of FFLs Nationwide.
That’s nice. Now shut down the ATF.
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Sorry, WAY Wrong Number. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news and this week we have one NSFW former sheriff’s deputy, the worst wrong number to dial, and a mystery woman’s MRI gone horribly wrong.”
READER FAVORITE: G Gradual Men’s Sweatpants with Zipper Pockets. #CommissionEarned
REAL LIFE IS JUST LIKE THE BABYLON BEE, JUST A BIT LATER: Once Again, Life Catches Up to The Bee.
COMPLEXITY: Nine Months And GM Can’t Supply A Bumper. “Now, it’s tempting to think this is yet another result of the Flu Manchu supply chain disruption. And it might be. But something else is at play here: The drive to make new cars ‘smarter’ (and thus more expensive). The Lyriq uses ‘multiple ultrasonic sensors located on your front and rear bumpers.’ The more smart components the car has, the more fragile the supply chain and the easier to break.”
BRADLEY THOMPSON: The State of the Union…and What You Can Do About It.
At the highest level of abstraction, the greatest existential threat to the United States is a philosophic virus of the mind. Specifically, the two greatest threats to the United States are nihilism and socialism, which, as actionable ideologies, are working in tandem to destroy Western Civilization.
Socialism is the end, and nihilism is the means.
What do I mean by that? How has our present condition come to be, and how does it work in practice?
In the 1960s, the New Left abandoned Marx’s idea of a convulsive proletarian revolution because the working class was inherently conservative. The new revolutionary strategy was for the intellectual and cultural elite to engage in a long march through America’s cultural institutions. The nihilistic goal was to undermine all the values and virtues of America and Western civilization. America’s cultural Left attacked reason, truth, objectivity, free will, rights, individualism, freedom, constitutionalism, and capitalism.
Since the 1960s, the Cultural Left has successfully infiltrated and commandeered the universities, the K-12 school system, the churches and synagogues, the media, Hollywood, major philanthropic institutions, virtually all professional organizations, social media, corporate America, etc. Things are so bad that the Cultural Left even controls the NFL and ESPN!
This postmodern Left controls virtually every opinion-forming institution in the country today. Even the family has been gutted and transformed. Parents no longer have a right to know, for instance, if the government schools are socially transitioning their children in preparation for the medical transitioning of their children.
Let me sum up our situation in the starkest terms possible: What kind of society sanctions the drugging and mutilation its children?
Let that sink in for a moment!!!
This is the victory of nihilism. Destroy capitalism’s underlying civic culture, and you destroy capitalism. Socialism is what follows.
But the situation is much worse than this because the Left has also captured the Federal and state bureaucracies (as well as NGOs) to affect every aspect of our lives. The result has been the merging of nihilism and socialism with what we call the Deep State, which is an entirely legitimate concept. In fact, I would like to suggest that the Deep State is much deeper and broader than most people realize.
Read the whole thing.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Brain-connected implants help paralyzed patients feel objects and shapes.
BIDEN’S PARTING GIFTS: Biden Issues Thousands More Commutations in New Clemency Blitz. “It should be noted that the White House did not release the names of those receiving commutations. Something tells me that quite a few of them are indeed violent criminals.”
WAGES OF OVERREGULATION: AT&T kills home Internet service in NY over law requiring $15 or $20 plans.
NARRATOR: THE MARCHES WERE NEVER ABOUT A CEASEFIRE AND WERE ALWAYS ABOUT INTIMIDATING JEWS.
We were told these marches were to bring about a cease-fire, not intimidate the Jewish community. We now have a cease-fire. The marches are carrying on regardless. https://t.co/wSxNK265ts
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) January 17, 2025
UNEXPECTEDLY: National Archives rebuffs Biden’s attempt to add Equal Rights Amendment to Constitution.
The National Archives poured cold water Friday on President Biden’s declaration that the Equal Rights Amendment is now part of the Constitution, saying courts and Mr. Biden’s own Justice Department have rejected that notion.
Mr. Biden issued a statement saying he believed that 38 states have ratified the ERA, which would be enough to make it the 28th Amendment.
But the National Archives and Records Administration, the official keeper of the Constitution as a document, said it stands by its decision — announced last month — that the ratifications didn’t happen before the deadline.
“Court decisions at both the district and circuit levels have affirmed that the ratification deadlines established by Congress for the ERA are valid. Therefore, the Archivist of the United States cannot legally publish the Equal Rights Amendment,” the agency’s leaders said at the time.
The Archives said Friday that has been “a long-standing position” and Mr. Biden’s announcement doesn’t change “the underlying legal and procedural issues.”
The key point is whether the ERA, which was passed by Congress in 1972 and was sent to the states for ratification, has amassed the 38 states needed.
Just 35 had ratified the amendment by 1979, which was the deadline set by Congress. Capitol Hill then approved a three-year extension of the deadline, but that came and went with no new ratifications.
In 2017, Nevada belatedly voted for approval, followed by Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020. ERA backers said that was enough to cross the finish line.
But that argument was rejected by federal courts that ruled the deadline had passed.
Mr. Biden’s Justice Department has also ruled that the deadlines are valid and the post-deadline ratifications cannot be counted.
Charles Cooke tweets, “I’m trying to get inside the head of anyone—Biden included, if he’s aware of it—who thought that it would be a good idea for the president of the United States to tweet out that he was unilaterally declaring that the Constitution had been amended. It’s so deliciously humiliating,” adding, “And not just humiliating for Biden and his team. Humiliating for all those people who said Biden was a decent guy who respects the law and America’s institutions and were rewarded with the student-loan grab, eviction moratorium, pardon of Hunter, and now this. It’s hilarious.”
Ed Morrissey writes: More Biden: I Hereby Commute ERA’s 1982 Deadline Too.
Presidents don’t get to overrule the courts, nor do they get to declare what is and is not in the Constitution. What makes this so outrageous is that Biden just warned against executive abuse of authority less than two days ago in his farewell address to the nation, proclaiming himself the hero of checks and balances:
After 50 years at the center of all of this, I know that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society: the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press. Institutions that are rooted not — they just — not to reflect the timeless words, but they re- — they — they echo the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Rooted in the timeless words of the Constitution, “We the People.”
Our system of separation of powers, checks and balances, it may not be perfect, but it’s maintained our democracy for nearly 250 years — longer than any other nation in history that’s ever tried such a bold experiment.
And in fact, Biden used this to demand that the states amend the Constitution to limit presidential power even further:
We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president — no president — is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The president’s power is limit- — it’s not absolute, and it shouldn’t be.
It’s not and it isn’t, not even under Trump v US, which only recognized that official presidential acts are checked by Congress and not local DAs trying to conduct political lawfare. But Biden sure seems to think that his own power is unlimited when it comes to not only interpreting the Constitution but determining its contents, too.
Who is writing the material that appear under Biden’s name in his last days? The old Russian joke, “If only the Czar knew,” takes on new meaning as Brandon shuffles the halls in his last days in office.
I BLAME GLOBAL WARMING: Extremely cold weather will force Trump’s inauguration inside for first time in 40 years.
RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Putting So-Called ‘Christian’ Terrorists to the Duck Test.
Another excellent podcast from Raymond.
GOOD NEWS FOR THE WATER FILTER INDUSTRY: Unregulated, harmful contaminants found in vast amount of U.S. drinking water.
COLD WAR II: Chinese hackers accessed Yellen’s computer in US Treasury breach. “The hack, what the Treasury called a “major incident”, happened in December when Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the department’s computer security guardrails by compromising third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust, according to Treasury officials.”
LIFE MOVES PRETTY FAST:
CNN yesterday vs CNN today: pic.twitter.com/lpFPMICzAg
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) January 17, 2025
Related?
Jim Acosta, one day after he gave a cringe monologue about how important he is to preserving democracy, has now been booted to the midnight-2AM block on CNN.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) January 17, 2025
DEVELOPING: CNN found liable for $5 million in defamation trial against US Navy veteran over Afghanistan report. The jury awarded Zachary Young $5 million in compensatory damages and found that the security contractor should also receive punitive damages for his pain and suffering.
