Archive for 2021

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Olympic Gymnasts Reveal That Comey’s Trump-Hating FBI Was OK With Child Rape. “The timeline of the accusations against the monster Nassar overlaps with the timeline of the FBI’s Russia collusion jihad against President Trump. The Bureau has become so politicized that it prioritized the destruction of the president over protecting little girls who were being raped.”

HMM: Breaking: Durham To Indict Michael Sussman? “Sussman, of course, was, until quite recently a partner at Perkins Coie, and a major player in the world of Dem election law work.”

Well, stay tuned, but so far the Durham investigation hasn’t produced much. When does the statute of limitations run out?

YES: When It Comes to the Delta Variant, the Kids Are All Right. “Any child’s death is tragic, but this number needs to be put into perspective. COVID-19 deaths among children last year are comparable to the number of children who die annually in automobile accidents (636 in 2018) and the estimated 480 deaths from flu among the same age group during the 2018–19 flu season. As Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, put it, ‘We don’t shut down schools in flu season.’”

Not before 2020 we didn’t.

EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Nicki Minaj Suspended From Twitter After Announcing She’s Taking Enlarged Testicle Crusade to the White House.

Nicki Minaj said she was suspended from Twitter on Wednesday night, shortly after she posted a series of tweets regarding her claims about Covid-19 vaccination side-effects. In one of the Wednesday tweets, Minaj said she had been invited to the White House to discuss her concerns.

The rapper has faced criticism this week for disseminating a rumor that the friend of her cousin in Trinidad and Tobago became “impotent” and “his testicles became swollen” after taking the vaccine.

When asked about the rumor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, said they were baseless.

“There’s no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen,” Fauci said.

Trinidad’s health minister was also forced to dispel the rumor. He lamented that “so much time” was wasted fact-checking the claim.

But she’s a uniter, not a divider! ‘Dummies:’ Nicki Minaj defends posting a clip from ‘white nationalist’ Tucker Carlson’s show.

Once again, proof positive that the version of the Matrix that Tom Wolfe programmed shortly before his death in 2018 is working absolutely perfectly. 

(Classical reference in headline.)

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Deep State, Deep Trouble: America’s woke generals and the Military-Industrial Complex must be purged to save the nation.

Revelations from a new book, Peril, by Bob Woodward and Rob Costa, reveal just how deep the spiritual rot in the military goes. In the days after the January 6 protest, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, promised, in the event of a war, to give aid and comfort to China. According to the Washington Post, after the Capitol protest, Milley sent secret communiques to the head of the People’s Liberation Army, promising that “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.” . . .

Our generals are losers abroad, and grifters at home. They parrot MSNBC talking points on Twitter and grovel before Fauci. This is bad enough. But Milley’s actions show that America’s top military officers have reached another level of delusion. They fancy themselves a new praetorian guard to protect the nation—as construed by elite editorial boards—from the people’s elected representatives.

This deep state is in control. It is clear that no populist elected leader can trust America’s security establishment. As Senator Chuck Schumer warned President Trump on Rachel Maddow’s show in 2017, the intelligence community has “six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.”

The military establishment is gloating now and flexing its muscle.

Losing wars while flexing political muscle. This will not end well, for anyone.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Business Travel, Conventions, Office Occupancy Stuck in Collapse: Been so Long, People Forgot What Old Normal Was.

The largest destination, the New York City metro, is expected to see an 88% collapse in annual hotel business travel revenues, from $4.6 billion in 2019 to a projected $531 million in 2021.

In Orlando, the second largest destination in 2019, annual hotel business travel revenues are expected to collapse by 81%, from $2.8 billion in 2019 to a projected $518 million in 2021.

The third largest destination, the Washington D.C. metro, is expected to see an 86% collapse in hotel business travel revenues, from $2.7 billion in 2019 to $371 million in 2021.

Plus: “Office occupancy, as measured by workers actually showing up at the office, struggled to recover from dreadfully low levels, but over the past two months has relapsed. According to Kastle Systems, the 10-city average has dropped to 31% of where it had been before the pandemic, meaning it’s down 69% from the Good Times.”

More at the link.

DAVID SOLWAY: Reason to Fear a Vaccine Mandate.

One does not wish to join the pandemic of viral fear whipped up by our political leaders, collusive medical “experts,” and the grossly irresponsible and programmatically ignorant media conglomerate. And yet, there is good reason to fear being inscribed in the category of “the unvaccinated”—the New Jews at risk of disenfranchisement and worse in the increasingly fascist temper of the times.

From my perspective, this is not a frivolous analogy. Growing up Jewish in a small town in the north of Quebec under the sway of an ultramontane clergy, I know what it is to be publicly mocked, prohibited as an undesirable from entering certain local establishments, and fighting my way out of ambushes when walking to school. I am familiar with epithets like maudit Juif (damned Jew), which I heard so frequently that for some time I thought it was one word, mauditjuif — which in effect it was.

Now, as a member of the tribe of the unvaccinated, I sense once again that primal fear of exclusion and imminent violence. As I wrote in an earlier article for PJ Media, my wife and I are under virtual house arrest, prevented from crossing our provincial borders, forbidden to attend a wide range of public activities and venues, including movie theaters, plays, sporting events, gyms, swimming pools, night clubs, concerts, conferences, and university seminars, or to dine in restaurants. I am back in the Quebec of my youth.

Read the whole thing.

THE FBI IS TERRIBLE AT ITS JOB: Star Gymnasts Give Senators an Unsparing Account of FBI’s Failures in Nassar Investigation.

In a litany of reports and documents, the four women who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday have for years been referred to by initials or numbers: “Athlete B,” “Gymnast 1”, “Athlete A,” “Gymnast 3.”

On Wednesday, the women—elite gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman—gave U.S. senators an emotional and unsparing account of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee failed to investigate or act when they emerged as potential victims of sexual assault by former national team doctor Larry Nassar.

“I can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you, sharing these comments,” said Biles, one of the most decorated gymnasts in her sport’s history. She then paused in tears, before adding: “To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar but I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.” . . .

Some gymnasts’ lawyers have demanded separate action against the FBI. Raisman also called for other action by Congress in strengthening anti-abuse measures, and in particular, the U.S. Center for SafeSport, the main body charged with responding to abuse reports in amateur sports.

The women repeatedly aimed their anger at both the FBI and the sports organizations under whose banners they won world and Olympic titles. Their remarks drew outrage from both Democratic and Republican senators, much of it aimed at the FBI.

We need mass firings.

More: US Olympic gymnasts slam Nassar investigation, allege FBI ‘turned a blind eye,’ falsified report.

EVERGREEN HEADLINE: California, You Blew It Again.

Not only did California Gov. Gavin Newsom survive the recall election, the vote margin was tilted so far in his favor by Wednesday morning that he’s likely to see the results as a mandate to issue another round of harsh pandemic rules. What is certain is that he will consider it a signal to press the Blue State agenda that’s made California a miserable experience for so many.

And here we go! LA County to Require Proof of Vaccine for Customers and Employees of Bars, Nightclubs, Sporting Events.

STACEY LENNOX: It’s OK to Be Pro-Vaccine and Anti-Mandate—in Fact, It’s a Winning Message. “The vaccine mandate gambit—meant to divide Americans following bipartisan condemnation of the Afghanistan debacle—largely worked. However, the majority of unaffiliated voters are breaking with Republicans on this issue in both polls, which gives Republicans a messaging advantage. Being pro-vaccine and anti-mandate seems to be the winning position. The vaccine mandate issue will linger much longer than the current surge of the Delta variant.”

ON DOOR-TO-DOOR SALESMEN, GOOGLE SEARCH AND INALIENABLE RIGHTS: They are strongly related (though not causative), as HillFaith explains this morning. And if you suddenly feel skepticism rising up in your chest, try a little willing suspension of disbelief, if only for a moment.

EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Biden $3.5T plan tests voter appeal of expansive gov’t role.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s “build back better” agenda is poised to be the most far-reaching federal investment since FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society — a prodigious effort to tax the rich and shift money into projects and programs touching the lives of nearly every American.

The ultra-objective AP believes that Biden is the next FDR and/or LBJ?

Amity Shlaes on Biden As the New FDR: It’s the same old bad deal for jobs.

Not until World War II did joblessness finally begin to subside, in good measure because of military mobilization — important, but not the same as peacetime employment.

As often discussed, errors in monetary policy contributed to the misfortune that was the 1930s. The cause of the duration of the Depression, though, was Washington’s persistent intervention. The chief economist at Chase, Benjamin Anderson, noted that after failing by playing God, the government chose not to retire but simply “to play God more vigorously.”

The first lesson of this sorry account is that an arbitrary national economic campaign from atop generates damaging uncertainty in the economy. However charmingly it reverberates, the very phrase “bold persistent experimentation” stifles growth.

The second point is that what helps the union hurts the worker. President Biden’s proposal to end “Right to Work,” if it becomes law, will dramatically stifle employment.

Flashback: FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.

And as William Voegeli wrote in his review of Shlaes’ 2019 book, Great Society: A New History:

The Great Society was predicated on the opposite conviction: America had become an “Affluent Society” (the title of John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1958 bestseller), whose irrepressible growth meant that worries about finite resources could no longer excuse tolerating remediable social problems (There was no such thing as an irremediable social problem.) Treating America’s new prosperity as permanent and inexhaustible, the Great Society proceeded to kill the goose laying the golden eggs, setting in motion what Shlaes calls an “economic tragedy.” Neither the inflation of the 1970s nor the transformation of America’s industrial heartland into its Rust Belt was inevitable, she argues. Both were direct, foreseeable consequences of short-sighted choices: demanding that monetary policy accommodate irresponsible fiscal policy, and labor and management agreeing to enrich one another by fleecing customers and shareholders ever more brazenly.

Don’t worry though, Biden can handle it — just ask him:

“Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” Biden told Politico last year. “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Biden asked in 2019. The truth is that Friedman, who died in 2006, has held little sway over either Democrats or Republicans for almost two decades. But Biden wants to mark the definitive end of Friedman and the “neoliberal” economics he espoused by unleashing a tsunami of dollars into the global economy and inundating Americans with new entitlements.

I’m sure things will turn out differently this time around.

(Classical reference in headline.)