FASTER, PLEASE: Hannah Cox: 4 Ways Americans Are Fighting Back Against Anti-Science COVID Restrictions. “What’s more American than apple pie? Civil disobedience.”
Archive for 2021
September 22, 2021
I LOVE A LITTLE BLUE-ON-BLUE ACTION: Abandon Ship! Progressive Caucus Threatens to Bail on Infrastructure Deal. “Progressive Congresscritter Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday afternoon that her caucus is more than willing to torpedo the smaller bipartisan bill if they don’t get their way on the bigger bill.”
WELL, THE MOST OBVIOUS TELL IS WHEN THEY’RE A JOURNALIST: Here’s How to Tell Within 5 Minutes If Someone Isn’t as Smart as They Think.
DAVID MARCUS: Newsom, Dems all about racism until Larry Elder is attacked.
It began with the Los Angeles Times running a piece claiming that Elder is the “Black face of White supremacy,” a claim that was repeated by an official speaker at a Newsom event. After that, Elder was accosted by a person wearing a gorilla mask who threw an egg at him.
We all know that if this had happened to a Black Democrat, we would be days into a national conversation about systemic racism. But Elder is a Black conservative, so that isn’t happening.
What lies at the root of this hypocrisy? Why would the media and the country’s elite who are so quick to bemoan the supposed racism of America suddenly go silent at such obvious examples? The answer is that Black conservatives are the greatest possible threat to the established political order.
The Black vote is the bedrock foundation of the Democratic Party’s power structure. And because of the geographical demographics of the Black vote, it holds serious sway in big cities and big states. There is nothing that could unravel the party as quickly or efficiently as a significant movement to the right by Black voters. That’s why the blatant racism directed at Elder is whitewashed.
Read the whole thing.
WOKE: How Racial Anxiety Conquered an Orchestra and Crushed a Career.
Most people haven’t heard of James Zimmermann, but most have heard him. A decorated musician with a long string of acoustic accolades, Zimmermann, 39, has made the sound of his clarinet difficult to avoid. He played at President Barack Obama’s second inaugural, has recorded tracks for best-selling video games, and helped create Walt Disney World’s new theme.
Zimmermann was also the principal clarinetist of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade—that is, until the orchestra fired him last February over accusations of racial harassment. To hear his accusers tell it, Zimmermann had insulted, intimidated, and even stalked his black colleagues, going so far as to menacingly drive by their homes. Human resources had already warned the clarinetist in 2019 that his behaviors could be grounds for dismissal, the orchestra claimed in its termination letter to Zimmermann. His refusal to heed that warning was ostensibly why he was fired in 2020.
But six of Zimmermann’s ex-colleagues and the orchestra’s own documents tell a very different story. They suggest that Zimmermann himself was the target of a witch hunt, instigated by a black oboist whom Zimmermann had stuck his neck out to help.
This is a fascinating story, well told.
MANY OF US ALREADY HAVE BUT IT ISN’T YET ENOUGH: How Far Will COVID-19 Medical Authoritarianism Go Before We Say ‘Enough’?
THE WHEELS ARE COMING OFF THE CLOWN CAR: White House Reporters File Formal Complaint Against Biden For Refusing To Answer Questions. “The entire editorial component of the U.S. pool went immediately into Jen Psaki’s office to register a formal complaint that no American reporters were recognized for questions in the president’s Oval Office, and that wranglers loudly shouted over the president as he seemed to give an answer to Ed O’Keefe’s question about the situation at the Southern Border.”
IN NYC, IT’S THE COMMIES VS. THE KARENS: Black Lives Matter to NYC: COVID Vaccine ‘Mandate Will Not be Another Racist Social-Distance Practice.’
Related: “As of today, only 38% of Black New Yorkers are vaccinated. The fact that over 60% of the Black community in New York City can’t eat inside Carmine’s is, of course, discrimination. But it’s not discrimination by Carmine’s. It was forced on them by an out-to-lunch Mayor Bill de Blasio and a complacent city that does not question directives that make no sense.”
THE DECLINE OF ERWIN CHEMERINSKY: ‘Partisan hacks’: Law school dean criticizes SCOTUS justices appointed by Republicans.
Jonathan Turley calls it a “bizarre statement.” It is.
BOMBSHELL BUT HARDLY SHOCKING: Former Biden Border Chief Makes Bombshell Accusations Against Administration. “Of grave concern is the fact that the Secretary and other political appointees within DHS have provided factually incorrect information to Congressional Representatives and to the American public. Furthermore, they have directed USBP personnel to allow otherwise ineligible aliens to remain in the U.S. inconsistent with the … established legal processes and law.”
HECKUVA JOB, JOE: ISIS terrorist who killed US troops in Kabul was one of the terrorists released in Bagram. “America’s disorganized retreat from Afghanistan has led to hundreds of highly-competent and highly-committed terrorists being set free to rejoin the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”
LESLIE EASTMAN: American Press Pushes Ridiculous Comparisons Between Spanish Flu and COVID. In the early days, with reports from China (which were probably deliberate disinformation) claiming a 4-5% death rate, such comparisons weren’t implausible. But we’ve known better for a very long time.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Biden’s Fake Presidency Could Wreck the Dems For a Long Time. “While I do worry about the damage to the U.S. Constitution our senile, alleged president and his puppet masters can do before November of 2022, I also relish the fact that his scorched-earth commie plan might relegate the Democrats to the backbench for quite some time.”
SOME PEOPLE REALLY HATE “STAND YOUR GROUND” LAWS: In Ohio, a lawsuit has been filed. It claims procedural irregularities in the passage of Ohio’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Evidently, legislators didn’t “debate and consider” the bill three times before passing it. At issue is whether that was actually required. Also at issue is whether the law flunks Ohio’s single-subject rule.
(Some historical background on “Stand Your Ground” laws can be found here.)
THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE GRIND SLOWLY: Judge Delays Katherine Magbanua’s Trial To February 14 — 2,768 Days After Florida State Law Prof Dan Markel’s Murder.
KAROL MARKOWICZ: Black Lives Matter wants to ‘cancel Carmine’s’ and no one can tell the truth.
In a city that was inflamed by protests over inequity and racism in the summer of 2020, it’s amazing that so little conversation ensued over the obvious bias of this vaccine mandate. As of today, only 38% of Black New Yorkers are vaccinated.
The fact that over 60% of the Black community in New York City can’t eat inside Carmine’s is, of course, discrimination. But it’s not discrimination by Carmine’s. It was forced on them by an out-to-lunch Mayor Bill de Blasio and a complacent city that does not question directives that make no sense.
Restaurants were never a major spreader of COVID. And if you’re vaccinated, why do you care if others are not?
Karen cares — and will find one way or another to make you feel just how much.
A GERMAN VIEW ON AUKUS: Snookered by Anglo-Saxons: The Europeans have misread Biden and misjudged Johnson. A bad combination.
Why is the UK part of this shift, and not France? The US considers France and the EU unreliable with respect to China because of their special relationships. Germany and France have pushed the EU-China comprehensive agreement on investment just before Biden’s inauguration. Germany runs massive export surpluses with China that it wants to protect. Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz are both in favour of extending the bilateral relationship. Europe has also left a door open to Huawei for its 5G networks. It was only the UK that really cut the links. The Chinese ambassador in the UK reacted with unbridled fury. His colleagues in Paris and Berlin, by contrast, stayed quiet. I assume that they have received reassurances through back-channels.
The UK is clearly the junior partner in Aukus. But it is the only European country the US can trust in the pursuit of its strategic interests in the Indo Pacific.
Given the quality of US leadership, I’m not sure how junior. Plus:
The UK’s strategic realignment was not inevitable. It is to a large extent the result of how the EU conducted the Brexit talks. The EU leadership never missed an opportunity to criticise Brexit. Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council, aligned himself to the second referendum campaign in the UK. The EU could have, but did not, support MPs in the UK who sought compromise, like Kenneth Clarke or Stephen Kinnock.
The second mistake, even worse than the first, was the intent to force the EU’s regulatory system on the UK as a price for a free trade deal. At no point did the EU even consider what kind of strategic relationship it wanted with the UK after Brexit. The EU let anger over Brexit get in the way over rational decision-making.
The enormous cost of this stupidity is slowly becoming apparent. The UK will not flood the EU with cheap goods, as France had feared. The UK’s strategy is more subtle. It will gradually cut off from European security policy. It will also cut off from the GDPR data protection regime and financial regulation. The UK has invested more into artificial intelligence than any EU member states. It is a permanent member of the UN security council and the G7. What on earth was the EU thinking?
And no, Biden is not going intervene on the EU’s behalf in the current standoff over Northern Ireland. EU leaders have always underestimated Boris Johnson. And they always overestimated Joe Biden.
Well, it’s easy to overestimate Joe.
Also: “The EU’s diplomacy is driven by emotion and a superficial understanding of US politics, and UK politics for that matter. Why did the EU place so much hope, so publicly, into regime change in Washington last year? Donald Trump was loud and crass, but all he ever did to the EU, other than insult them, was impose tariffs. Europe never experienced anything nearly as hostile as Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan or the Aukus deal. But all of this was perfectly foreseeable.”
TO BE FAIR, WHAT’S THERE TO APPROVE? Iowa back to disliking Biden, just 31% approve.
NOT FROM THE BABYLON BEE: Democrats Agree: Criticizing Our Behavior Is Racist, Sexist, Homophobic.
UNEXPECTEDLY! Inflation has turned $15 an hour wages into a setback.
OFTEN CORRUPTLY: How our culture and our government gave too much power to Facebook.