END OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING: NY Dems push for law mandating 500 hours of training for ‘shampoo assistants.’
Archive for 2020
August 8, 2020
DO THEY, NOW? Scientists say COVID-19 recovery plans should include climate change. They think this makes climate change sound more urgent, but actually it makes the pandemic seem less urgent, and more like an excuse.
TODAY IS INSTAPUNDIT’S 19TH BLOGGIVERSARY. Celebrate as seems appropriate.
HARSH, BUT FAIR:
I HAVE A PIECE ON LIBEL REFORM COMING OUT IN THE TENNESSEE LAW REVIEW THAT I THINK IS PRETTY INTERESTING. You can download it here. It was inspired by Clarence Thomas in the McKee v. Cosby case, and I expect the Supreme Court to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan in the not too distant future.
Download it early and often!
UPDATE: Is this some sort of academic coup-counting, people ask. Yes. I need about 300 more downloads to get me into the top 10 list on SSRN.
HARSHING THE NARRATIVE: NYC Councilman Paul Vallone credits Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 recovery.
HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE? Marijuana may harm heart, experts say.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: DHS Dispels Three Myths About the Riots in Portland.
WHAT NASA DOES NOW INSTEAD OF BUILDING MOON ROCKETS THAT WORK: NASA: ‘Certain Cosmic Nicknames’ Are ‘Actively Harmful,’ Will ‘Reexamine’ Their Use.
UPDATE (From Ed): America’s Newspaper of Record is already on the case:
I assume it’s only a matter of time before the increasingly “woke” NASA goes full O’Brien, and argues the stars don’t really exist.
(Updated and bumped.)
TRUMP ORDERS $400-PER-WEEK UNEMPLOYMENT PAYMENTS AMID COVID CRISIS, HITS DEMS FOR STONEWALLING: “Acting unilaterally has its limits and could prompt legal challenges. Trump’s orders are narrower in scope than the trillions Congress is mulling for a massive stimulus to the virus-damaged economy. Congress controls new federal spending. Trump already predicted sidestepping lawmakers will have lawsuit consequences but dared opponents to deprive Americans of relief. ‘If we get sued, it’s [from] somebody that doesn’t want people to get money,’ Trump said. ‘And that’s not going to be a very popular thing.’”
WHAT’S FUNNY IS, BIDEN COULD HAVE WON THE PRIMARY AND SET HIMSELF UP STRONG FOR THE GENERAL BY RUNNING AS THE ANTI-WOKE TRADITIONAL DEMOCRAT: Joe Biden’s Capitulation To The Crazy Left Is Alienating Democrats Like Me.
But it’s not as if Biden is calling the shots here, any more than he would be as President.
HMM: Mysterious ‘fast radio burst’ detected closer to Earth than ever before.
I’m not saying that it’s aliens. But it’s aliens.
GOOD AND HARD:
● Portland Cops Are Getting the Hell Out of Antifastan and Retiring in Record Numbers.
● NYC Murders Up 50% for Month of July, NYPD Stats Show.
Even the New York Times has figured out that the “new normal” isn’t sustainable: Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure. What is it like when a city abandons a neighborhood and the police vanish? Business owners describe a harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone.
BABY PLEASE COME BACK, SAYS ANDREW CUOMO:
This week Governor Andrew Cuomo begged New York City residents to return to the city in the most shameless act of wheedling by a New Yorker since Mars famously importuned Nola, in Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It, “Please baby, please baby, please baby, baby, baby please.” Used to live in NYC but have lately found the suburbs, or points south, more congenial? Andrew Cuomo will cook you dinner if you come back.
“I literally talk to people all day long who are now in their Hamptons house who also lived here, or in their Hudson Valley house, or in their Connecticut weekend house and I say, ‘You got to come back!’” Cuomo said Monday. “‘We’ll go to dinner! I’ll buy you a drink! Come over, I’ll cook!’”
“I’ll buy you a drink” is the cringiest of those promises since Cuomo has been closing dozens of bars for not complying with his arbitrary virus-related diktats, which include requiring tipplers to order food in accordance with some known-only-to-him provision of the coronavirus that confers immunity via purchase of a Caesar salad. But he’s probably right about one thing: All of the people who are eager to move back to New York City could indeed probably fit in his dining room right now. It has finally occurred to Andrew Cuomo that the months-long electronic tongue-bath he received from media outlets such as CNN, which in the midst of the carnage pushed forward his own brother to serve as his interlocutor/publicist/comedy sidekick, has not fooled New Yorkers of means. Scads of the wealthiest have fled, and they are in no rush to return.
As Glenn wrote last month, “It’s fine for you folks to flee, but don’t vote for the same bunch of anti-American commies who ruined New York. It’s really time for my Welcome Wagon project.”
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM? Seattle ‘Respects’ Black Voices by Slashing Black Police Chief’s Salary in Retaliation for Criticism. Racism, straight up.
TROLL LEVEL: POTUS DJT. Trump defends gathering at Bedminster golf club as ‘peaceful protest.’
President Trump defended a gathering of members of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club as a “peaceful protest” against the media.
“To me they pretty much look like they all have, pretty much all have masks on,” Trump said, who said the Friday gathering was not in violation of Garden State social distancing regulations.
“You know you have an exclusion in the law. It says peaceful protest or political activity, right?” he added.
“I call it peaceful protest because they heard you were coming up and they know the news is fake, they know it better than anybody,” Trump continued.
As Andrea Widburg writes at the American Thinker, “Whether he’s studied them or not, President Trump is a master at cutting leftists down using the Rules for Radicals that Saul Alinsky drafted to help further a leftist agenda. At a press conference at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump showed his mastery of Rule 4 (‘Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules’), Rule 5 (‘Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon’), and Rule 6 (‘A good tactic is one your people enjoy’).”
NOT A WACKY CORONAVIRUS STORY: 5G Just Got Weird.
HARD TO BELIEVE WE’D LOOK BACK AT THE 1990s AS THE GOOD OLD DAYS. Memorable moment in an exceptional year: The Netscape IPO of 1995.