KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dear Dems—Trump 2024 Is Gonna Be Super LIT. “All of this is being driven by the Democrats’ obsession with using the J6 fauxsurrection to keep Trump off of the ballot in 2024. They know that they could resurrect FDR and Trump is still going to waltz back into the White House. He’s the monster under all of their beds. As I’ve written before, he’s not only living rent-free in their heads, he’s building condos and inviting his friends.”
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN! Inflation “only” 8.5% in July. Yay! All credit to the sage in the White House!
Wait, what?
Even with the lower-than-expected numbers, inflation pressures remained strong.
The jump in the food index put the 12-month increase to 10.9%, the fastest pace since May 1979. Even with the monthly drop in the energy index, electricity prices rose 1.6% and were up 15.2% from a year ago. The energy index rose 32.9% from a year ago. . . . Shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the CPI weighting, continued to rise and are up 5.7% from a year ago.
Well, uh, it’s still great news because . . . economists expected 8.7%!
Plus: “While inflation has been accelerating, gross domestic product declined for the first two quarters of 2022. The combination of slow growth and rising prices is associated with stagflation, while the two straight quarters of negative GDP meets a widely held definition of recession.”
LEFTY POLLSTER FINDS LEFTY THEMES DON’T WORK WITH VOTERS: This is intriguing – the Winning Jobs Narrative Project surveyed 60,000 voters in 17 states and discovered this:
“‘Making villains of corporations’ and embracing ‘culture war topics like abortion’ are ineffective strategies for Democrats. Liberals would attract more voters, in fact, if they sounded like conservatives — talking about ‘respect for work’ and placing ‘government in a supporting rather than primary role,'” reports Washington Free Beacon’s Robert Schmad.
TOP. MEN. FBI ‘Scoured’ Melania’s Wardrobe at Mar-A-Lago Looking for… Classified Shoes?
Sounds like a fishing expedition launched out of desperation. But maybe Manolo is an unindicted coconspirator or something.
TRUMP 2024, DESANTIS 2028/32: If Merrick Garland doesn’t give a solid, fast reason for raiding Trump’s home, he’s probably just re-elected him.
IT’S A TRANSITORY, HIGH-CLASS PROBLEM: Inflation a ‘concern’ for California food bank as price hikes ‘put a lot of pressure’ on household budgets.
IN A WAY, IT’S NEWS THAT THIS KIND OF THING HAS BECOME SO ROUTINE: SpaceX launches 52 Starlink satellites, lands rocket at sea.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Food crisis: Inflation forcing change in eating habits.
Hit hardest are families with children — with 72% changing their habits to accommodate higher prices for basics such as eggs, milk, butter, and bacon — and women under 40 at 73%.
Rasmussen found that nearly all Americans, 89%, have been paying more since President Joe Biden took office, and 61% believe they will still be paying more in a year.
Notably, there was virtually no difference between Republican and Democratic reactions to the question of paying more. The survey analysis found that 88% of Democrats are paying more for food than they were a year ago, and 90% of Republicans said they are too.
Unfortunately, higher prices are a reality with inflation at a 40-year high.
It didn’t happen by accident.
WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS BIDEN WAS NOT BRIEFED ON FBI RAID AT MAR-A-LAGO:
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that President Biden was not made aware that the FBI planned to searchformer president Donald Trump’s personal residence at Mar-a-Lago before the action was carried out on Monday.
“What I can tell you definitively and for sure, he was not aware of this,” Jean-Pierre said of Biden. “Nobody at the White House was. Nobody was given a heads up and we did not know about what happened yesterday.”
There’s a possibility this is actually true, given how undisciplined this White House has been. As Matthew Continetti asked last month: Who’s In Charge?
If all the White House has to offer is excuses, if decisions are made either slowly or randomly, if the communications team and the president and vice president seem to live on different planets, if incompetence and mismanagement appear throughout the government, it is because the chief executive allows it. No conspiracy is required to explain the ineptitude. This is Joe Biden we are talking about. Lately, though, I have been having second thoughts. Not that Barack Obama or Ron Klain or Dr. Jill are running the show in secret. What I have been wondering, instead, is whether anyone is leading the government at all. There is no power, either overt or covert, in or behind the throne. The throne is empty.
Think of the economy, the border, and Ukraine. From time to time, Biden addresses these issues. He may even answer questions about them. The White House sends out press releases describing its latest initiatives. Vice President Harris or the second gentleman pops up somewhere to talk about all the good she and he are doing.
Yet each of these elements—the president, his staff, his spokesperson, his vice president, his policy—comes across as disconnected, discombobulated, as if each inhabits a separate sphere of activity. Whether because of Biden’s age, or his weekend trips to Delaware, or years of remote work, or lower-level staff turnover, or a painstakingly slow decision-making process, or ideological stubbornness, or a lack of a strategic plan, this administration drifts from crisis to crisis, and from one bad headline to the next. And nothing improves.
The raid on Mar-a-Lago certainly helped to get a lot of bad headlines for Biden out of the press, by putting Trump front and center in the media again, which the administration is thrilled about. It will likely dominate the Sunday talk shows, getting Team Brandon past yet another disastrous news cycle.
ACTUALLY, HE TURNED UP THE POLITICS AT JUSTICE FROM DAY ONE. THE VOW WAS ALWAYS JUST A LIE. Garland vowed to depoliticize Justice. Then the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago. Remember when he treated parents who spoke up at school board meetings as domestic terrorists?
Flashback: Merrick Garland has proved himself unfit for Supreme Court — but he shouldn’t be AG either.
NOW OUT FROM DAVE KOPEL: Restoring the Right to Bear Arms: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Download it early and often!
JULIETTE OCHIENG: “About the raid again: please stop expecting them to go by the book. Why should they start now?”
If you like her work, consider subscribing.
THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Urgent polio boosters for London children.
All children aged one to nine and living in Greater London will be offered a polio vaccine after the virus was detected in sewage.
The virus, which can cause paralysis, has been found 116 times in London’s wastewater since February.
The urgent immunisation campaign will see nearly a million children offered the vaccine – including those already up to date with their jabs. . . .
However, what is happening now is slightly complicated as the samples detected are linked to a polio vaccine used in other countries.
Parts of the world still dealing with polio outbreaks use the oral polio vaccine – which is safe, but uses a live virus. This gives a huge amount of immunity, but has the potential to spread from person to person in areas where not a lot of people are protected.
Everything is going swimmingly.
PROGRESSIVE POLITICS IS PUSHED DOWN BY THE RULING CLASS, NOT DEMANDED BY THE MASSES: Progressive Pollster Finds That People Oppose Progressive Policies: Winning Jobs Narrative Project says Dems should ‘realize progressive Twitter isn’t real life.’
DEAL OF THE DAY: GearLight S2000 LED Flashlight. #CommissionEarned
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: U.S. Labor Productivity Suffers Biggest Crash Ever Recorded, Labor Costs Soar Most Since 1982.
1982 was the big year of the early ’80s recession engineered by Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan to squeeze inflation out of the economy — and set the stage for the ’80s boom times.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, is just getting started taxing and regulating productivity gains out of existence.
THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TOP-DOWN PRIORITY IN AMERICA: Some tech employees have had enough of the DEI focus at work.
WHEN THE LEFT DOES IT, IT’S “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE,” WHEN THE RIGHT DOES IT, IT’S AN “INSURRECTION:” Arizona Dem Praised Radical Immigration Group That Harassed Sinema: Kirsten Engel’s support for leftist groups could alienate voters.
BETTER SEND IN MORE FBI GUYS: Wait — Those ‘Classified’ Docs FBI Sought in Trump Raid Were Already Declassified.
AMERICA’S PAPER OF RECORD: Report: FBI Raided Mar-A-Lago After Tip That Parents Were Protesting A School Board Meeting There.
APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY: New Details About Judge Who Approved Mar-A-Lago Raid Raises All Sorts of Red Flags. It seems the Justice Department should have put an issue of this magnitude before a full federal judge, rather than a magistrate, and that maybe it should have found someone without an Epstein connection. Maybe there’s nothing actually wrong here, but you can’t blame people for wondering. And maybe they figured that if they’d put it in front of that sort of a judge he would have laughed and told them to go away.
WELL PLAYED. EXCEEDINGLY WELL PLAYED: Israeli students accuse Ben & Jerry’s of occupying tribal land in Vermont.
COOL. DEAR BORDER GOVERNORS, WE THE CITIZENS VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTE CASH TO HELP SEND EVERYONE WHO CROSSES THAT BORDER TO NYC AND DC: DHS Ending Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy.
REALLY? WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO CAMPAIGN FOR? CLOSED BORDERS? NYC Mayor Adams Wants to Bus New Yorkers to TX to Campaign Against Gov. Abbott.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IS THAT THE MARXISTS ARE GIBBERINGLY PANICKED AND ACTING LIKE THE LUNATICS THEY ARE: omething’s Happening Here: Feds Seize Cell Phone Of Trump Ally House Rep Scott Perry Day After Mar-a-Lago Raid.
NO, NO, NO. HE ISN’T WEAPONIZING THEM. THEY’RE ALREADY WEAPONIZED: White House Spox Karine Jean-Pierre Refuses To Say If Biden Is Weaponizing DOJ, FBI Against Political Opponents.
THEY’RE THE ONLY ONES BELIEVING THEIR LIES: When Rulers’ Lies Come in Battalions.
MAY? MAY??? Joe Manchin May Have Just Cooked His Own Goose.
The pop up timer on that goose popped a while ago.
VERY FEW THINGS LEAVE ME WORDLESS, BUT THE STUPID FBI TRICKS YESTERDAY DID SO: Speaking of Bad Plots.
OH, YOU DON’T SAY. HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SHOCKED FACE? Judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion donated $2,000 to Barack Obama’s campaign and represented Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express pilots, his scheduler and ‘Yugoslavian sex slave’.
Is it pedophilia all the way down?
LOOK, THEY STILL THINK ULTRA-MAGA IS AN INSULT: Bizarre White House self-own: “Dark Brandon Returns”.
Ultra Maga, Assemble! For Justice, honor and the American Way!
THOSE ELUSIVE DOCUMENTS: Press Statements in Response to Media Queries About Presidential Records.
I’ll believe documents justify an FBI (Who knew their real name was Federal Bureau of Infamy?) raid when they raid Sandy Berger’s socks.
UH. I DIDN’T KNOW ROBERT ZIMMERMAN HATED THUGS AND GOONS SO BADLY HE’D COMPARE THEM TO DEMOCRATS: The Democratic Party of thugs and goons.
DON’T MALIGN THE THIRD WORLD. MOST OF THEM AREN’T QUITE THAT BAD: Dan Bongino erupts over FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago: ‘Third-world bulls***’.
THE REAL CAUSE OF THE FIBBIE RAID: Fewer Americans think Trump ‘responsible’ for Jan. 6 after hearings, 40% would still back 2024 run: poll.
CRISES BY DESIGN: The US Industrial Complex Is Starting to Buckle From High Power Costs. Surging bills are forcing companies to scale back industrial operations, threatening a greater drag on the economy.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese company’s rocket launches 3 satellites into orbit.
GOP HOUSE MEMBER WHO VOTED TO IMPEACH TRUMP CONCEDES: “Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of two Republican members of Washington’s congressional delegation who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, has conceded her reelection bid after being overtaken in late vote tallies by an intraparty challenger. Trump had targeted the six-term incumbent and endorsed Joe Kent, a former Green Beret, in the 3rd Congressional District contest. The district is in southwest Washington state, across the border from Portland, Oregon.”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Albuquerque Cops Identify Suspect Muhammad Syed in Murders of Muslim Men.
Police on Tuesday announced they’ve charged an Albuquerque man with the murders of two Muslim men in a spate of recent slayings that have shaken New Mexico’s largest city in recent weeks.
Muhammad Syed, 51, also faces possible charges for the murders of another two Muslim men who were killed in Albuquerque in the last nine months. Ahmad Assed, president of the city’s largest mosque, told The New York Times that authorities informed him the shooter is a Sunni Muslim who may have targeted the victims because he was angry over his daughter marrying a Shiite Muslim.
Thus, this story will likely be quickly memory-holed.
TWO CAN PLAY AT THAT GAME! Israeli students accuse Ben & Jerry’s of occupying tribal land in Vermont.
Israeli students claim that ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s is “illegally” occupying land in Vermont that once belonged to a Abenaki native American tribe and should practice what it preaches and immediately evacuate the properties.
A cheeky letter sent to B&J — signed by more than 1,000 Israeli students and academics affiliated with Students for Justice in America — accuses B&J of of hypocrisy.
“We have concluded that your company’s occupation of the Abenaki lands is illegal and we believe it is wholly inconsistent with the stated values that Ben & Jerry’s purports to maintain. Ironically, in July of the last year you announced that you would discontinue the sale of your products in Israel because you object to the Jewish State allegedly occupying Palestinian territories,” the letter to B&J’s chairperson, Anuradha Mittal said.
Over to you, Ben & Jerry’s. When will you be departing the land you’re illegally occupying?
ROGER SIMON ON THE MAR-A-LAGO RAID: DOJ and Dems Risk Civil War to Save Their Jobs.
Barely more than a week ago, on July 31, The Epoch Times published an article of mine—Would the Indictment of Donald Trump Lead to Civil War?
How fast things move; not even Usain Bolt could keep up.
What’s behind the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home besides a burst of Neo-Stalinism reminiscent of Comrade Beria’s “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime,” mixed with an effort to prove once-and-for-all that the USA is becoming a banana republic run by characters out of ”Seven Days in May.”
What made 30 (or was it more) FBI agents give a former president the Gestapo treatment in the early hours of the morning, allegedly rummaging in multiple rooms of his house, not looking so much for anything in particular—anything would do—while breaking into his safe in the process?
Call it The Big Panic. Call it something more insidious—the instigation of one-party rule.
The Democrats, the Deep State, the Justice Department (DOJ), the FBI, and all the intelligence agencies, globalists, propagandists of mainstream media, all the adherents of that one-party rule and enemies of republican government, will do anything … anything … to stop Trump from winning the 2024 election.
That includes courting civil war, and endangering millions of lives in the process, even though some of these panic-stricken individuals must realize they could ultimately lose that war.
It doesn’t matter to them. They need to stop Trump. They know the current list of candidates on their side has no chance to win in a country whose economy and global importance are tanking simultaneously.
Worst of all—they would lose their jobs, many of which are lifetime sinecures.
Trump’s main goal now is to end the Deep State, including such things as simply closing down the Department of Education, which has done nothing positive for education since its inception. He has said as much in recent speeches, often to wild applause.
Exit quote: “This is an untenable situation for a democratic republic, not that we are one anymore. To put it bluntly, we are already China—or something very close. Pay attention. Act accordingly.”
Related: Trump ally Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) says the FBI seized his cellphone one day after Mar-a-Lago raid.
PILOTS WERE REPORTING THESE FOR DECADES AND EXPERTS WERE SKEPTICAL: Mysterious Jets of Upside-Down Lightning Are Real, And We Just Got Our Best Look Yet. A “citizen scientist” was behind this.
#BELIEVEALLWOMEN: “A grand jury in Mississippi has declined to indict the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago.” “She accused him of making lewd comments and grabbing her while she worked alone at a family store in Money, Mississippi.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Major test of first possible Lyme vaccine in 20 years begins.
JULIETTE OCHIENG: The Raid: Difference Between Trump and Clinton. If you like this, consider subscribing.
It’s funny because it’s true. It’s also not funny because it’s true.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN COSPLAY: Colorado Dem Obtains 24-Hour Fishing License To Shoot Campaign Ad. “Bennet, who has seen his net worth increase by the millions during his time in the Senate, is running for reelection against former carpenter and construction CEO Joe O’Dea. Republicans are optimistic that Biden’s historically low approval rating has made Bennet’s seat competitive. According to FiveThirtyEight, Bennet votes with Biden 98 percent of the time.”
DEMOCRATS UNDER BIDEN KEEP BEHAVING AS THOUGH THEY’LL NEVER BE OUT OF POWER — DO THEY KNOW SOMETHING WE DON’T? Republicans Slam Biden Admin Over Raid of Trump Home, Vow Investigation.
READER FAVORITE: Belkin Power Strip Surge Protector with 8 AC Multiple Outlets. #CommissionEarned
OFTEN WRONG, NEVER IN DOUBT: Political Experts Aren’t Really Experts. And their track record proves it.
BUT AT LEAST THEY’VE BEEN SPARED THE HORRORS OF FRACKING: Energy Bills in Britain to Double Next Year.
JEFFREY ANDERSON: Masks Still Don’t Work. More than two years on, the best scientific evidence says that masks don’t stop Covid—and public health officials continue to ignore it as they impose mandates at schools, colleges and military bases.
Masks are physically uncomfortable, make it harder to breathe, and profoundly compromise human social interaction. But none of that matters to the mask zealots, who are convinced that benefits far outweigh any potential costs. So, where is the proof?
Nowhere — not in the data from the pandemic, and not in the scientific literature (including that zealots’ favorite study from Bangladesh). Read the whole thing.
THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM, PERFORMING AS USUAL: The Chaotic Monkeypox Vaccine Pipeline Is Leaving Everyone Short.
Par for the course.
THE INSTA-WIFE SUFFERS FROM THIS EVER SINCE A DENTAL MISHAP THAT DAMAGED A NERVE: Study: Tinnitus is widespread, deserves more attention from researchers.
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Biden administration says ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is over.
Just keep sending those busses to Washington and New York City.
DARK BRANDON: Now Biden Can’t Even Dress Himself. “This is fine. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just the most powerful man in the free world, who doesn’t know where he is or who he is or what’s happening from one moment to the next. Yeah, okay, so he can’t even dress himself anymore. What’s the problem?”
SO STOP WITH THE VICTIM-BLAMING: Men’s higher risk of most cancers may be due to biological, not lifestyle, differences.
DON’T GET COCKY — A CORNERED RAT IS DANGEROUS: Deep State Burns Its Bridges to Get Trump—and Now It’s Fighting for Its Life.
THEY’RE NOW GIVING ADVICE ON HOW TO LIVE ONCE THE GREENS BAN AIR CONDITIONING: 11 ways to sleep better in unbearable heat: No AC? No problem.
I say, start with the parasite class: Ban A/C for DC! “We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.”
I’ll believe it’s a crisis when they start making actual sacrifices.
WHY MIGHT THAT BE? Harris County Really Doesn’t Want Vote Audits. “Remember, this is the county where the voting administrator had to resign over a horribly botched March primary this year.”
MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH WARRANT WAS APPARENTLY ISSUED BY A MAGISTRATE JUDGE. I mean no disrespect to federal magistrate judges – who are not Article III judges and are appointed to 8-year terms – but were I the FBI, I probably would have made the effort to try to get a full-on federal judge with a life term to sign off on a unprecedented search warrant for the former (and maybe future?) President’s house. The point of such life terms is to insulate such judges from political influence, and getting a warrant from someone not so insulated, on something as hot as this, is not a great look.
(I am ignoring the angle here that he had also represented employees of Jeffrey Epstein – it’s usually not fair to smear lawyers with their clients – but that’s not the best optics you could hope for either.)
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Judge Who Approved Mar-A-Lago Raid Was Obama Donor, Linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
Related:
A GOOD BEAT, A LITTLE TEQUILA . . . How dancing black holes get close enough to merge.
LABELING AS PROPAGANDA: ‘Made in China’: Apple tells Taiwanese suppliers to relabel products. “Apple told suppliers on Friday that China has begun to enforce its rule that Taiwanese products be labeled as being made in ‘Taiwan, China’ or ‘Chinese Taipei,’ both of which indicate that the island is a part of China.”
To be clear, the law applies to Taiwan-made parts (and other items) shipped to Communist mainland China for final assembly.
ATHENA THORNE: The Great Self-Sorting Continues. “An Axios-Ipsos poll is the latest confirmation of what many people already see happening around them: deeply divided Americans are sorting themselves into ever-redder and bluer states that better align with their personal ideologies.”
We used to get along much better before Washington decided we had to be forced to get along better.
And by “get along better,” I mean “go along with them.”
BE PREPARED: LifeStraw Personal Water Filter for Hiking, Camping, Travel. #CommissionEarned
BACKGROUNDER: Russian Defence Research Expert on AFU performance, the effect of Western weapon supplies.
A balanced interview with Ruslan Pukhov, director of Russia’s Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
NOT IF THEY CAN HELP IT, THAT MEANS: Princeton mum on whether it will investigate prominent professor accused of plagiarism. Ever since the Bellesiles affair I’ve had a pretty low opinion of elite academic history.
Since it’s been a long time, here’s Jim Lindgren’s Yale Law Journal article debunking Bellesiles fraudulent scholarship. (Would YLJ publish an article like this today? Doubtful.)
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Dark Brandon Is Your Nightmare Comic-Opera Dictator. “‘You’ve got a nice constitutional republic here,’ I wrote in a Vercotti Brothers voice. ‘We wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.'”
Plus:
- See MSNBC toe the FBI’s line in realtime
- The most heartwarming Ring video ever #FJB
- Boy, the news from New York City
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
THE TERM “LATINX” IS ANGLO CULTURAL IMPERIALISM, SO THEY’RE OFF TO A BAD START: ‘Anti-racism, anti-oppression work, equity, and social justice’ commitment required for ‘Latinx’ cluster hire.
Then again, woke politics is basically a white Anglo dysfunction, so. . .
IT’S JOE BIDEN’S POLICY. NEW YORK IS JUST GETTING A TINY TASTE OF IT: “This is horrific,” New York City mayor says of Greg Abbott’s policy as second busload of migrants from Texas arrives.
THIS IS DIVERSITY? Here’s some things these four women — Dorothy Roberts, Kristin Henning, Sheryll Cashin, and Derecka Purnell — have in common: All are black, all have written books about ripping apart various American institutions, and all are webinar panelists for the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) convention, according to Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader.
“On August 17, AALS is hosting a webinar on new constitutional law books for its Constitutional Law section. But none of the books are about constitutional law. Why is it hosting the panel, then? Because it provides an opportunity to showcase what the AALS views as racial diversity,” Bader explains. How quickly the Left becomes a caricature of itself.
And we wonder why so often “lawyer” is a synonym for “Left-wing activist.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Merrick Garland’s Mar-a-Lago Raid May Have Clinched Senate for the GOP. “If there were any undecided voters floating around somewhere in America I can’t imagine that the fence is very comfortable right now. It’s also probably a safe bet that Drooling Joe’s Stasi move guarantees that apathy won’t be a problem for the Republicans.”
HAND OVER YOUR WALLET, SUCKA! Elizabeth Troutman of the Washington Free Beacon reports that the ACLU and Human Rights Watch want the UN — not the American people — to demand that President Joe Biden move with “immediate, tangible measures” to dismantle “structural racism” in America, including the payment of reparations to every group that ever claimed to be oppressed.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Why Are Gas Prices Falling? “I believe the outlets are right to pinpoint changing demand as the relevant factor for falling prices, and they’re right that higher prices are part of the story, but the explanation is missing the most important part.”
JOHN HINDERAKER: The FBI has openly become an arm of the Democratic Party. This will not serve the Bureau well in years to come. But what was the pretext for the raid?
I’m not sure these questions originated with Mike Lee, but they’re good questions. For example: “Ninth, what should we make of the fact that this is occurring while FBI and DOJ have taken no discernible action regarding (for example) flagrant violations of the law by (a) Hunter Biden, or (b) pro-abortion extremists threatening Supreme Court justices at their homes?”
Plus: FBI Director Wray Leaves Senate Hearing Early to Fly on Government Plane to Vacation Spot.
I’LL BELIEVE SHE’S SERIOUS WHEN SHE GIVES UP HER AIR CONDITIONING AND LIVES IN LESS THAN 1000 SQUARE FEET: Liberal Media Scream: Jane Pauley hypes climate agenda to ‘human extinction’ level.
JEFFREY CARTER: Making Up Numbers. “I think you ought to toss out all economic numbers from 2020 and 2021. Ignore them. Go back to 2019. Covid and the government’s response makes them silly to use when forecasting or trying to make sense of the economy. Sort of like using stock market numbers from 1930-1935 to extrapolate long-term return on equity. Hopefully, it’s a one-time event. The tax receipt numbers on the abysmal bill that just passed the Senate are guaranteed to be wrong. Economic incentives will change, and the numbers will be far below the expected numbers. Joe Biden and the Democrats killed the bull market. Lots of numbers are totally made up.”
FAR-LEFTIES DOMINATE NEW HILL AIDES’ UNION: The president of the Congressional Workers Union (CWU) works for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. But wait, there’s more! And it’s all from the Far-Left of the modern Democratic Party. What could go wrong?
HEAD OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S UKRAINE ARM RESIGNS AFTER BACKLASH TO REPORT:
The leader of Amnesty International’s Ukraine arm resigned Friday amid fallout from a scathing report the human rights organization issued criticizing the Ukrainian military’s tactics amid the ongoing Russian invasion.
Driving the news: The report accused Ukraine of endangering its own civilians and allegedly violating international law. It prompted Oksana Pokalchuk, the leader of the watchdog organization’s Ukrainian arm, to resign, saying in a Facebook post the report had become “a tool of Russian propaganda.”
What she’s saying: “If you don’t live in a country invaded by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an army of defenders,” Pokalchuk said.
This is what lit the spark:
Not surprisingly, in between Annie Leibovitz photo shoots and posing with actress Jessica Chastain, Zelensky went apoplectic:
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the report Thursday. Amnesty International, he said, was attempting “to grant amnesty to the terrorist state and to shift blame from the aggressor to the victim of the aggression,” Politico reported.
There’s further fallout as well: Will Amnesty condemn Islamic Jihad’s tactics as it did Ukraine?
Amnesty International’s contentious Thursday report, claiming that the Ukrainian military endangered civilians with its tactics, saw the organization lambasted for promoting Russian propaganda. But it is the fighting that began a day later, between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, that threatens the human rights group’s global credibility.
Islamic Jihad is clearly using the exact same tactics that Amnesty International accused Ukraine of. If the NGO does not condemn the terrorist group for these actions, it will show the world not just its political bias, but a staggering display of hypocrisy as well.
To be fair, Amnesty already accomplished that years ago.
VIDEO: Ukraine Export Deal: Too Little, Too Late. “The likely end result here is that this is the last year that Ukraine participates in international grain markets. They simply don’t have the capacity to get stuff up at a scale.”
If you don’t have the time or inclination to watch a video, Lawrence Person has done his usual excellent job of breaking out the bullet points for you to read.
ILYA SHAPIRO ON MOVING FROM CATO TO GEORGETOWN LAW TO THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: “What’s really different is that my organization’s leadership encourages my professional endeavors and isn’t trying to get me to toe a rigid ideological line.”
DEAL OF THE DAY: Digital Meat Thermometer with Probe. #CommissionEarned
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: I apologize for my white baby: How can I extol the virtues of anti-racism while birthing another white person? “During my pregnancy, I caught myself fantasizing about the child coming out Black. My husband and I talked about adopting, but after watching that fascist Amy Coney Barrett parade her Black children in front of America at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing to prove she’s not just a racist bootlicker for the Patriarchy, we reconsidered. After all, does a Black child in a white family not perpetuate the cycle of white supremacy?”
Plus: “We tried desperately to find a Black nanny but had to settle for a Latinx.”
It’s satire, but I was only 100% sure of that because I know the author. We live in the instantiation of Poe’s Law.
HOW MANY CARS QUALIFY FOR THE SENATE DEMS’ NEW SUBSIDIES? “Today’s trick answer, via Reason: none. Thanks to the convoluted path that the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ took, what started off as an expansion of an existing tax credit for electric-vehicle models on the market developed into subsidies for vehicles that only exist in the imagination.”
THE TYRANNY OF THE ‘CURRENT THING:’
For a while, the Current Thing was #MeToo. From 2016 until 2018, the Current Thing was Russian collusion. After that scheme unraveled, we moved through a series of Current Things, each of which was said to compound the grave threat Trump supposedly posed to Our Democracy: in March 2020, it was Covid-19; for a few months that summer, it was systemic racism; then, it was the Delta variant; finally, for a stretch of early 2021, it was the January 6th “insurrection.” And when Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine became the Current Thing. You knew it was the new Current Thing because all the smart people suddenly changed how they spelled and pronounced “Kiev.”
So, you know what the Current Thing is. What, then, is “Current Thingism”? Current Thingism is the default mindset of a certain segment of the American population: typically, the professional, liberal, educated, urban caste of society. Current Thingism is an enduring assumption that whatever the Current Thing happens to be, it should, in fact, be the Current Thing—the issue among issues.
Current Thingism also enables some judgment on the part of the Current Thingist. Because the Current Thing deserves our total attention and deference, anyone who disputes the existence or the urgency of the Current Thing is a problem. The person who does not concede the urgency of the Current Thing is dumb, dangerous, or both. Remember the treatment of those who doubted the efficacy of masks? Those who were reluctant about mRNA vaccines? Those who doubted the wisdom of sending billions of dollars to fund Ukraine’s defense? Such is the fate of those who don’t get in line with the Current Thing.
Read the whole thing, which seems remarkably timely given the DNC-MSM’s reaction to last night’s events (the O-face on Nicolle Wallace’s face on the screen grab says it all).
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