Archive for 2020
November 23, 2020
SO, HELEN AND I DROPPED BY THE KNOX COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT BUILDING TO SEE THE ANTI-LOCKDOWN PROTEST. There were over 200 people there, a mix of small business people, waitresses and bartenders, etc. The class conflict angle was real. As the Board of Health met via Zoom, one of the speakers remarked: “It’s the upper elite that meet by zoom. The rest of us have to go to work.” The vibe very much reminded me of early Tea Party rallies, as did a remark I overheard from one of the organizers, “I thought we’d be lucky to get 5 or 10 people but we got all these.” I also heard people saying how much fun it was to get out and protest.
Also heard: “Limit Wal-Mart first!”
The protest opened with a prayer, which was preceded by a statement that those who were not into it were still respected and valued and welcome. There were also calls for courtesy, and a critic who showed up was even allowed to speak, though he opened by telling the crowd that its failure to wear masks was the reason for new restrictions. This was poorly received.
I think the coronavirus overreach is producing blowback. And I think that the deplorables aren’t going to sit down and shut up as some people hoped.
I took a few pictures:
And it made a difference: Knox Co. Board of Health approves blunted measures with 10 p.m. dine-in curfew, table size restrictions. “After hearing discussion from business owners and seeing blunted measures recently passed in the Memphis and Nashville areas, the Board of Health opted not to vote on the stricter measures it had discussed Friday that would have cut restaurant capacity to 25%.” And closing gyms, which was on the agenda last week, wasn’t discussed at all.
Related: Protests show two Americas — those who lost their jobs and those still getting paid.
Also, from a lefty source:
There’s a huge Covid class divide. The economy has not just bounded back for upper income Americans; it’s given them higher housing values and lower interest rates. Meanwhile, 12 million service industry workers are still out of work. Small businesses are struggling. The affluent see Covid as a health problem, while for the working class it’s about economic survival. And liberals are doing the same thing they did with Trump: Clothing their class privilege as science and facts and morality.
The politicians are even worse. Instead of coming up with a clean Covid bill, Democrats are now trying to pressure Biden into student loan forgiveness. Can you believe it? What kind of society thinks it’s ok to ask 12 million people who lost their jobs to Covid to foot the bill for the student loans of the top 40% of earners? Sure, maybe it will accidentally help someone in a food line who dropped out of college. But college-educated Americans are back at work. The Covid recession is over for them. Why are the Democrats designing legislation to help the people who need it least, in the belief that some of the benefits might trickle down to help those who need it most?
Oh, I think I know why. And this whole interview is pretty sensible.
BIG TECH’S TIGHTENING NOOSE: The Censorship Intensifies Against Fieldcraft Survival.
A VIDEO WITH A TRANSCRIPT, WHICH IS NICE: Mark Rippetoe: Testosterone Optimization Therapy with Jay Campbell.
UPDATE: Compare the guys in the above video with the guys in this one: Related: Buzzfeed Crew Shocked To Learn They Have Low Testosterone Levels.
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Mystifying monolith found amid Utah rocks.
Has it sent a powerful radio signal aimed at Jupiter yet?
MEH. AstraZeneca says COVID-19 vaccine has average efficacy of 70%. Though it’s 90% at a different (weirdly, lower) dosage. Takes two shots a month apart, though.
UNEXPECTEDLY, CRIME IS SOARING: “Burn It Down.” In Seattle, the movement to “abolish the police, prisons, and courts” is not simply the dream of marginalized radicals; it has also been adopted at the highest levels of municipal government. “Burn it down” has evolved from a street slogan into a political platform.
THEY’RE GETTING THE REALLY CRAPPY BAND BACK TOGETHER: Obama Staffers Who Joined NBC, MSNBC, and CNN, Now Headed to Biden Admin.
18th AMENDMENT RETURNS TO PENNSYLVANIA FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY! Pennsylvania Bars, Restaurants Not Allowed to Sell Alcohol After 5 p.m. Wednesday for One-Night Only; Stay-at-Home Advisory Issued.
I’VE SHOT ALL OF THESE, BUT I’M PARTIAL TO THE SPEER GOLD DOT: 5 Best 9 mm Loads for Self Defense.
PORT CONGESTION ON THE WEST COAST? “I’ve been in business long enough to know that something smells. Bad.”
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Democrats Push To Keep Schools Closed So Kids Will Be Dumb Enough To Accept Socialism.
And it’s working! Teen Vogue: ‘America’s Values Are White Supremacy and Capitalism.’
THE MULLAH REPORT: Is Biden bringing back the Iran Deal? Biden-Harris will do their best not to finish Trump’s successful business.
‘We’re going to be back in the game,’ our presumptive and somewhat previous new president tells us. ‘It’s not America alone.’ But America was never out of the game under Donald Trump and never alone.
Look who are also back in the game: Tony Blinken, who was Barack Obama’s deputy secretary of state, is Biden’s secretary of state. Jake Sullivan, once one of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides, is going to be Biden’s national security adviser. John Kerry, the disastrous diplomat who gave us the Iran Deal, is Biden’s climate emissary.
And it was all going so well. Trump might not have built his wall, but he had the first successful foreign policy of any president since Ronald Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down that earlier wall. Of course, the Euros moaned. They are, as Barack Obama so memorably said of the British, ‘freeloaders’. It was a considerable achievement to force the Germans, Europe’s richest nation, to promise to pay their 2 percent to Nato.
On the other hand, look at the upside on Kerry’s return: “[I]f you want nothing done, John Kerry is just the man for the job. No wonder oil and gas stocks are soaring today. Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times catches this point right away:”
Biden seems determined to put the band back together again, as Jake and Elwood would say: Biden to Nominate Janet Yellen for Treasury Secretary.
“THEY TOLD ME THAT IF JOE BIDEN WON THE ELECTION, TRUMP SUPPORTERS WOULD START GETTING ARRESTED JUST FOR BREATHING — AND THEY WERE RIGHT!” Trump Supporter Charged with Assault for Breathing on Protesters.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: Annoyed ABC Scolds Americans ‘Not Listening,’ Visiting Family on Thanksgiving.
—NewsBusters, today.
● Chaser: Little evidence that protests spread coronavirus in US.
—Headline, ABC News.com, July 1st.
VERY LITTLE OF WHAT WE’RE DOING IS DRIVEN BY SCIENCE. THAT WAS FORGIVABLE IN MARCH, WHEN WE DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING. IT ISN’T NOW. The Coronavirus Is Airborne Indoors. Why Are We Still Scrubbing Surfaces?
NEW JERSEY DEM. GOV. CONFRONTED AT RESTAURANT FOR NOT WEARING MASK, NOT DISTANCING (VIDEO).
As with many of their tactics, apparently Democrats never expected that their four years of harassing Republican officials in restaurants would ever be reciprocated by the other side, something they’ll likely be discovering to their chagrin over the next four years.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. “In recent weeks, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald and now Matthew Yglesias have all left secure roles to pursue their own newsletters via this platform. So, of course, it’s inevitable that those who feel threatened by these moves will next strike at the common denominator — the platform itself. To rob these writers of their credibility and potency, the tactic will be to undermine the platform they’ve used to achieve financial, moral and intellectual independence. . . . Never fall into the mistake of assuming any of this is about principle or journalism. It’s about power. Independent writers increasingly at odds with existing journalistic institutions are taking back their audiences, and their autonomy. And cultural gatekeepers struggling to maintain their principles and their relevance in the current intellectual hothouse are using whatever tricks they have at hand to maintain their traditional role and authority. This is all very predictable.”
Plus:
Those pushing the people like Sullivan and Yglesias out of their newsrooms shouldn’t waste their time trashing the platforms that allow for the very independence that they too might one day cherish. Instead, they ought be cheering. The rats are gone! The ships of established media institutions are now unsullied by the gutter-sniffing stain of wrong opinion. The noble survivors are now liberated to ascend the ranks, anointed anew as if by the angels on high.
Well, here we are now. Entertain us.
Heh. Smells like Woke Spirit. And you know what happens when you get woke. . . .