WEIRD, BECAUSE THE NEWS ISN’T TALKING ABOUT THE ECONOMY ALL THAT MUCH, AND WHEN THEY DO THEY NEVER GIVE TRUMP THE CREDIT: Americans feel good about economy and give Trump credit – CBS News poll.
Archive for 2019
May 22, 2019
THE PEOPLE RUNNING OUR INSTITUTIONS ARE STUPID: Chicago High School Falls for ‘OK Sign’ Hoax, Spends $53K Reprinting Yearbook.
THERE NEEDS TO BE AT LEAST ONE MORE ZERO ON THIS CHECK: Michigan man who wrongfully spent 45 years in prison will get $1.5 million from the state.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot:
“With respect to the photograph on Governor Northam’s personal page, we could not conclusively determine the identity of either individual depicted in the Photograph,” the document says.
—EVMS probe could not determine whether Northam was in racist photo, but school knew about it for years, the Virginian-Pilot, today.
● Chaser:
“I accept responsibility for my past actions, and I am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust,” he said.
* * * * * * * *
“I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now,” Northam said. “This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine and in public service. But I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment. I recognize that it will take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused. I am ready to do that important work. The first step is to offer my sincerest apology and to state my absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their governor.”
—Ralph Northam admits he’s in “clearly racist” photo; vows to serve out term amid calls for resignation, the Virginian-Pilot, February 1st.
YIKES: Tesla enters survival mode as stock price drops.
A storm was already brewing in January when Musk announced that 2,500 workers, 7% of the workforce, would be laid off. That came after 9% were laid off the previous June, with Musk saying, “We are making this hard decision now so we never have to do this again.” After two profitable quarters in late 2018, it seemed the time had come for Musk to buckle down and make good on his promise to deliver a mass-market car efficiently and profitably. Then came the first quarter from hell.
Tesla’s financial condition has only deteriorated since then. Musk has responded on two tracks: He’s watching every penny of expense, while talking up a series of projects with varying degrees of likely completion — from a new Model Y crossover to a robo-taxi service he employed to pitch the recent stock-and-bond sale. In the past such products, like the Tesla semi, while derided by critics as vehicular vaporware, have managed to boost the stock price. No more.
Tesla has been in a race to scale up from an unprofitable boutique manufacturer of electric vehicles to a profitable mass-manufacturer, before the existing mass-manufacturers move big into electric vehicles. It’s too soon to say they’ve lost the race, but the company’s mass-market Model 3 hasn’t (yet?) proven the be the financial boon Musk was counting on.
IN THE MAIL: From Mark Levin, Unfreedom of the Press.
MARK ELLIS: Will the Deep State Conspirators Ever Be Held Accountable? “Even given all we now know, and are learning from Hannity’s ‘boomerang’ extravaganza each day, it would be irresponsible to categorically state that yes, this person, those people, will ever be charged or brought to trial, let alone hear the clank of a cell door closing behind them. Due to the labyrinthine depths, interconnectivity, and power inherent in a Deep State that has shocked a nation aghast at the reach of rogue bureaucracies, no one can say for certain whether any of those who concocted this conspiracy will ever be brought to justice.”
ANSWERS TO 21st CENTURY QUESTIONS: London to New York in two hours by new hypersonic jet – but when will it fly?
IRAN’S PROXY ARMIES HAVE BECOME A LIABILITY: They were never plausibly deniable, anyway.
SLING LOAD LIFT FOR AN AGMV: A 2st Infantry Division CH-47 F-model Chinook lifts the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne)’s newest vehicle, the Army Ground Mobility Vehicle (AGMV). The exercise took place at Udbina Air Base, Croatia. Here’s a closeup of the AGMV.
GREAT MOMENTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT: A 69-Year-Old Great-Grandmother Was Arrested at Disney World for Carrying CBD Oil.
DR. TOD WORNER: Mystery, Manners, and the Rediscovery of Great Literature.
In many high school or college venues, the process of teaching literature has been reduced to performing cold and soulless vivisection on the most vibrant, engaging and instructive of stories. And what is the result? A corpse—a cold and soulless story—is left on the table, likely never to be approached again by the disillusioned student. John Jay Chapman captures the essence of this tragedy when describing what has become of William Shakespeare’s brilliance when many a teacher is through with him: “Many a lad has known less about Shakespeare than he did when the only phrase he knew was ‘Anoint thee, witch’—and he didn’t know where that came from. Now he can write the etymology of the words on an examination paper; but the witch herself has vanished. Information is the enemy of poetry.”
But this wasn’t the case for Bob Dylan. The sweep and verve, the agony and ecstasy of an obsessed sea captain, an anguished young soldier, and a homesick hero sprang off the pages at him. They were companions that challenged him to thoughtfully consider them, to be changed by them, to tell their story but in a different way. They possessed him and his music because obsession and anguish and homesickness are all parts of who Bob Dylan is. And we listen to Dylan spin the story anew because they are part of who we are too.
This is a lovely piece — read the whole thing.
AN OMINOUS TITLE FOR HIGHER ED: Skip College: Launch Your Career Without Debt, Distractions, or a Degree.
AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Subpoena Madness! Women Cry for It, Men Die for It! “If Nadler is really serious, why doesn’t he start filing lawsuits to get the information he is demanding? Why isn’t he challenging the White House’s claim of executive privilege? He just wants a fight he doesn’t want information.”
WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE IT DID: 64% Think FBI Knew The Dossier Was Unreliable When They Applied for Search Warrant Against Trump Campaign.
ARTHUR CHRENKOFF ON AUSTRALIA: “It’s pretty much a hard political law that when the right loses an election they tend to blame themselves (‘it was the infighting – the bloody moderates/conservatives [delete as appropriate] destabilised the party’ or ‘what a shitty campaign that was; what idiots do we have in charge at the headquarters?’). If, on the other hand, the left loses they blame the voters, who are either evil or dumb. Or they blame the electoral system. The same system that seems to work OK every time they win, all of a sudden becomes problematic, outdated and deeply flawed when they don’t.”
BLUE CITY BLUES: ‘Sky-High’ Trash Piles Found In Los Angeles, Raising Concerns About Typhus.
Richard J. Riordan, the most recent Republican mayor since 1961, left office in 2001.
CHANGE: Suburbs return to Trump, GOP fights to keep them.
When the 2018 elections practically wiped out GOP members from suburban districts, the party went into a panic. But since, the suburban vote, especially among women, has come back to the Republicans as the economy has surged.
“President Trump remains popular among suburban and rural voters, especially suburban women. Trump polls very close with suburban women among” 2020 Democratic challengers, said pollster Jonathan Zogby of Zogby Analytics.
“The suburban data is interesting and is a good reminder that midterm elections tell us almost nothing about what’s going to happen in the presidential election,” added pollster Chris Wilson of WPA Intelligence.
Same with early polls.
ABC’S THE NOTE: Impeachment buzz boiling over for Pelosi and House. “In the toggling between ‘if’ and ‘when’ on the subject of impeachment, the ‘when’ side appears to be winning.”
Pelosi seems to understand that impeachment is election suicide, but she’s losing control of her caucus.
LEFTIES ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY: The New Right Is Beating the New Left. Everywhere. From Australia to Europe, the signs are multiplying that conservative populism is on the rise.. The leftist “resurgence” is primarily a media-driven phenomenon, as the press throws up one synthetic hero after another, Beto-style, while reporting breathlessly on a relatively small number of “activists” in a fashion calculated to make them seem like a wave.
Flashback: Donald Trump is a symptom of a new kind of class warfare raging at home and abroad. “But the New Class isn’t limited to communist countries, really. Around the world in the postwar era, power was taken up by unelected professional and managerial elites. To understand what’s going on with President Donald Trump and his opposition, and in other countries as diverse as France, Hungary, Italy and Brazil, it’s important to realize that the post-World War II institutional arrangements of the Western democracies are being renegotiated, and that those democracies’ professional and managerial elites don’t like that very much, because they have done very well under those arrangements. And, like all elites who are doing very well, they don’t want that to change.”
