IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT PEOPLE GET DOUBLE-TEAMED BY ME AND ALEX POURNELLE. But it does happen.
Archive for 2021
August 31, 2021
THIS SORRY ADMINISTRATION IN A NUTSHELL: An angry Biden blames Trump for Afghan pullout — then takes credit for it.
HARSH BUT FAIR:
I THINK THAT’S THE PLAN, ACTUALLY: ‘Consequences’ of US withdrawal from Afghanistan ‘will reverberate for decades,’ retired military brass warn.
SALENA ZITO: The Negligence of Joe Biden.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, BIDEN STYLE! Biden Declares Victory in Defiant Speech on Chaotic Afghanistan Withdrawal: ‘We Were Ready.’
(Updated and bumped.)
HARSH, BUT FAIR:
Plus, the Nike ad you’ll never see, because, well, Nike:
OPEN THREAD: I’m not gone for good. But if I’m ever in a power trio, I want it anchored by a hot blonde who can play slide.
More here. And you’re a fool if you don’t listen.
Plus, this. Quoth my brother: “She’s the real deal.” Like Stevie Ray Vaughn and John Fogerty, mixed up.
Related: My life in five riffs.
She plays a lot like my brother Jonathan.
ROGER SIMON: Elder Versus Newsom: A Battle for the Soul of America.
The article was from the California Globe, a publication I had never heard of, and was dated Aug. 17, ages ago in the whirlwind pace of today’s politics, but it caught my eye because it quoted extensively from Gavin Newsom’s stump speech, which ran in part:
“Though we defeated Trump, we didn’t defeat Trumpism. Trumpism is still alive and well, even here in the state of California. If you don’t believe me, just consider the likely person to enter an oath of office, to enter in the governor’s office in just a matter of weeks if we don’t reject this recall.”
“Don’t think for a second that this recall is not about all of you. It’s about each and every one of us and the values we hold dear.”
I immediately thought of an editor at the Los Angeles Times who, during a Zoom interview with Elder, accused the talk show host of much the same thing, being out of synch with the values of the state.
But just what are those California values everyone is supposed to hold so dear Newsom was speaking about? And are they in the process of changing or going back to something from years ago that was lost?
In a sense, the current governor and the editor of the state’s most prominent paper are correct, this recall election is about values.
But are they the values of a rich class that has, for years and years, sent their kids to private schools while they—at the insistence of all-powerful teachers’ unions—deny poor minority children “school choice” and force them into schools like the one Larry Elder attended years back in South Central, Crenshaw High, from which, just recently, but two percent of students passed a basic math proficiency test?
It would be interesting to know what Crenshaw was like when Elder attended compared to today.
And now these same supposed progressives want to teach Crenshaw students Critical Race Theory and the concurrent anti-racism, an approach to education likely to bring that two percent to zero.
There’s nothing like reverse racism to enlighten the young mind and develop responsible adults, according to Democrat (and Newsom) “values.” Don’t worry about fathers in the home. That’s so 1950s.
From their vocal, enthusiastic responses to Elder’s speech, it was clear CRT and the Afghanistan debacle were the two issues most on the minds of the fundraiser crowd Sunday night.
Here’s a headline I didn’t expect to see in 2021: Dems sweat Latino turnout in California recall.
Earlier: Stanford Study: More Businesses Have Already Fled California This Year Than in All of 2020.
I WOULD ENROLL IN THE TENNESSEE SPACE GUARD: Lamborn and Crow propose establishment of Space Force National Guard.
HOW NATIONAL REVIEW sold its soul to Google. “Conservatives must finally recognize something that’s very depressing and very important: the conservative intellectual movement in America didn’t just fail. It aided and abetted the Left for money. The Left bought off the Right’s leading conservative intellectuals. And its think tanks. And its ‘flagship’ magazines. This is not hyperbole or conjecture. I’ve got the receipts.”
OLD AND BUSTED: ‘Only hot people get the Pfizer’ Vaccine rivalries descend on TikTok.
–NBC News, April 8th.
The New Hotness? Wait. So now Moderna is twice as good as Pfizer?
–Jazz Shaw, Hot Air, today.
CONTROL: XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: China Tightens Regulation of Celebrity Culture as it Reforms Education and Develops Insights From “Social Mentality” Studies.
Related: Xi’s thought is embedded in teaching materials at all levels; primary schools to emphasize “political enlightenment,” revolutionary traditions, national security, labor education, and a 9 topics curriculum are “integrated” into universities, middle schools and primary schools. Basically, what the left is doing here.
HEROES: Alone in the Sky, Christian Pilot and Fiancée Save 17 from Tennessee Flood.
The weather was terrible and Boyers had to contend with hills and high-voltage power lines on the way to Waverly, a small city about 60 miles west of Nashville. Just before reaching the town, he set down in a field to get his bearings and realized the internet was down, making it impossible to pinpoint the house he was looking for. He flew on anyway. . . .
To perform the rescues, Boyers had to maneuver around power lines, balance his skids on sloped rooftops, and hover over floodwaters. It took all the skills learned over 16 years flying, including for a television news station, for documentaries and for country music stars.
“I don’t want to lie,” he said. “It was almost a little fun for me.”
It was also a powerful experience to go through with his fiancée, Melody Among, who acted as his co-pilot, spotting power lines, giving him sips of water and even taking the controls at times. “Her and I will be bonded to those people for life,” he said.
At one point, he spotted four people on the ledge of a roof of a farm supply store where he was able to set down one skid, making three different trips to pick them all up. One was a woman who said she had watched her husband get swept away and had become separated from her daughter, who was on the roof of a nearby gas station. Boyers touched down and rescued the daughter too.
Americans are better than their leaders. And the pilot friend who sent this to me adds: “You can tell he’s a hell of a pilot too, because he said he was enjoying it.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: They Offered Early Retirement To Faculty. Here’s Why I Took It At 51.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE NAIL: Why Don’t We Tell Women What’s Making Them Miserable? “Over the last five decades, feminism has made a long march through American culture, culminating in the first female vice president of the United States. But it isn’t clear that feminism’s fruits are helping everyone. Happiness metrics confirm that women are struggling: Suicides, depression, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections have all increased dramatically over the last five decades. Women aren’t becoming happier, just more medicated. A 2020 Pew Report showed that over 50 percent of liberal white women under 30 have some sort of mental-health issue. That statistic alone is stunning enough to indicate that something is going very wrong for the modern woman, despite the steady uptick of feminist advances.”
DEMOCRATS KNOW WHO THEIR FRIENDS AND THEIR ENEMIES ARE: Joe Biden Arms the Taliban While Banning Ammunition for Americans.
FASHION ANALYSIS: Hillary Clinton’s Flattering Yet Sensible Hamptons Lewk Is a ‘Hot Girl Summer’ Triumph. Failed presidential candidate turns heads in secular beach burqa. “Hillary is the first woman in American history to lose a presidential election after being nominated by a major party, and the only politician to ever lose an election to Donald Trump.”
Yes it’s satire — or is it?
FOR NOW: California Vaccine Verification Bill Dies for Now. “If passed, the bill would have required all employers, public or private, to have their employees show proof of vaccination or submit to a weekly COVID-19 test.”
OUR COUNTRY IS RUN BY GARBAGE PEOPLE: Afghan Interpreter Who Helped Rescue Biden in 2008 Left Behind After U.S. Exit: Mohammed, stranded in Afghanistan and hiding from the Taliban, makes a White House appeal: ‘Don’t forget me here.’
Thirteen years ago, Afghan interpreter Mohammed helped rescue then-Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after their helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm. Now, Mohammed is asking President Biden to save him.
“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” Mohammed, who asked not to use his full name while in hiding, told The Wall Street Journal as the last Americans flew out of Kabul on Monday. “Don’t forget me here.”
Mohammed, his wife, and their four children are hiding from the Taliban after his yearslong attempt to get out of Afghanistan got tangled in the bureaucracy. They are among countless Afghan allies who were left behind when the U.S. ended its 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan on Monday.
Mohammed was a 36-year-old interpreter for the U.S. Army in 2008 when two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters made an emergency landing in Afghanistan during a blinding snowstorm, according to Army veterans who worked with him at the time. On board were three U.S. senators: Mr. Biden, the Delaware Democrat, John Kerry, (D., Mass.) and Chuck Hagel, (R., Neb.).
This just gets more shambolic. And remember, some people want to put the government in charge of your health care.