WHEN SOMEONE TELLS YOU WHO THEY ARE, BELIEVE THEM: The NY Times Is Telling Us The Dictatorship They Want
Archive for 2020
February 26, 2020
ILLEGITIMATE: In Iran, an Electoral Flop.
According to the official Fars News Agency, just 42 percent of Iranians voted in the country’s latest parliamentary elections, which took place on Friday. That’s the lowest percentage ever recorded in the 41-year history of the Islamic Republic. (By way of comparison: The turnout for Iran’s last parliamentary elections, in 2016, was approximately 60 percent.) Yet there’s good reason to believe that even those official numbers are inflated, and perhaps significantly so. Outside reports, relying on internal Iranian media sources, indicate that actual voting tallies fell far below the official 42 percent figure, forcing the regime to keep polling stations open longer than planned to scrape together even a minimum number of legitimate votes.
If you’ve been paying attention to events in Iran, that lackluster showing shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Over the past two years, persistent protests in practically every major Iranian city — and at virtually every stratum of Iranian society — have showcased a population that has become profoundly disaffected with the country’s clerical regime. These protests have flared anew in recent weeks, following the Iranian government’s accidental January 8 downing of a Ukrainian airliner amid heightened tensions with the United States. That event helped to convince many Iranians that their government is dangerously incompetent, and a real hazard to their own safety.
Keep pushing.
THE BUDGET PROBLEM WASHINGTON DARE NOT MENTION: It’s the unfunded future obligations under Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements that make the national debt $122 trillion, not the officially cited figure of $23 trillion.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) had an otherwise-excellent summit on the budget Tuesday that featured Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehosue (D-RI), plus key Senate and House budget panel staffers going back to 1985.
But nobody said anything about that $122 trillion monster lurking in the “out years” that won’t be out sooner than anybody thinks.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Harvey Weinstein to get special detail to prevent ‘Epstein incident.’
Related: Hillary Clinton: Harvey Weinstein ‘contributed to every Democrat’s campaign.’
My local vet really needs to get a jump on updating his signage.
AT AMAZON, canned Boston Brown Bread. Also with raisins.
WHEN CAN I BUY A WORKING MODEL? Patents Secured for Revolutionary Nuclear Fusion Technology.
BERNIE SANDERS IS THE CORBYNIZER: Democrats Debate: Senator Sanders Emerges in the Garb of Jeremy Corbyn.
(Classical reference in headline.)
BRIAN CATES: The ‘Wrong Scandal’ Keeps Winning.
One scandal, commonly referred to as “Russiagate,” claims that the man who had just won the election was an undercover agent who took orders straight from Moscow.
The other one that emerged claimed the first scandal was always a false construct of the rival Hillary Clinton campaign and its politicized allies within the federal government’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This second scandal came to be called “Spygate.”
One of these scandals was indeed fake and the other was very real.
Most of the U.S. media went all-in on the proposition that the fake scandal was real and the real scandal was fake.
However, the scandal that was endlessly promoted by mainstream news outlets turned out to be a hoax, as shown by the investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller and Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Meanwhile, the scandal they dismissed as a “wild conspiracy theory” turned out to be real.
Read the whole thing.
WHAT’S CAVEMAN FOR “I WASN’T EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM?” Humans in Asia survived Toba super-eruption 74,000 years ago.
Coronavirus Weakens China’s Powerful Propaganda Machine. “For now, citizens are staying a step ahead of the authorities. But a renewed government crackdown could test the strength of this digital resistance.”
OBVIOUSLY, WE NEED TO MAKE AR-15 OWNERSHIP MANDATORY: Violent Crime Rate Continues to Drop as AR-15 Ownership Rises.
DON SURBER: NYT panics over 2020 race.
INCREDIBLE: Despite Record Media Bias, Trump More Popular Than Obama at Same Point in Presidency.
A great, great many people have tuned the media out.
TRUMP THUMPS SANDERS 50-43 AMONG LIKELY VOTERS: Rasmussen’s survey was conducted Monday and Tuesday.
BUTTIGIEG SICK, CANCELS SEVERAL FLORIDA EVENTS: “Buttigieg stills plans to attend an event Wednesday in Charleston, South Carolina, with the Rev. Al Sharpton, then travel to Washington for previously scheduled meetings.”
In other Buttigieg news: What Was Buttigieg Thinking Encouraging a Nine Year old Boy to Come Out as Gay at His Campaign Event?
JAMES O’KEEFE COLLECTS ANOTHER SCALP: ABC News suspends David Wright for remarks made in Project Veritas video.
The veteran reporter expounded at length on his political views. “I would consider myself a socialist, like I think there should be national health insurance,” he said. “I’m totally fine with reining in corporations, I think they’re too many billionaires, and I think there’s a wealth gap – that’s a problem.”
In the hidden video that Project Veritas said was filmed in New Hampshire during its primary’s coverage, Wright, 56, also called President Trump “a d—” while simultaneously complaining that Trump is sometimes not given “credit for what things he does do.”
Wright did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment. A rep for ABC News told Fox News he would be reassigned after serving his suspension.
“Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved,” the rep said. “David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”
Does the above spokesman, who issued the same statement to the Daily Caller in response to Wright being caught by one of O’Keefe’s hidden cameras, know that he works for the network that employs Clinton flack George Stephanopoulos, and recently had a former ABC employee fired at CBS for allegedly blowing the whistle on Jeffrey Epstein?
Elsewhere, Twitchy spots the Daily Beast’s Will Sommer tweeting, “ABC’s suspension of David Wright looks ridiculous now that the [James O’Keefe] video he got suspended for is out. Wright makes the same critiques of the broadcast news business that you’d hear in any journalism class.”
Including pretending to be objective when you’ve got a clear ideological agenda, apparently.
PRAMILA JAYAPAL OF WASHINGTON STATE: Bernie Bro Congresswoman Says U.S. Healthcare Is ‘Literally Causing People to Die.’
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Donald Trump Won the South Carolina Democratic Debate.
‘TIS A PITY THEY CAN’T BOTH… ACTUALLY, THEY CAN BOTH LOSE! Joe Biden Shocks Sanders Campaign With Commercial Claiming Bernie Wanted To Primary Obama.
Video at the link.
YOU DIDN’T KNOW CHILDREN ARE BORN WITHOUT A BIOLOGICAL SEX? Then you just aren’t as smart as British Labour Party Member Dawn Butler.