FROM BAD TO WORSE: Biden’s Retreat on Crime. Violent crime is soaring, police departments are shrinking, local activists are further hamstringing law enforcement, and now the Biden Justice Department seems likely to press for more of the “reforms” that drove up crime in the cities targeted by the Obama administration. In a podcast (which includes a transcript), Rafael Mangual and Brian Anderson of City Journal discuss the grim prospects for New York and the rest of the country.
Archive for 2021
February 3, 2021
IT’S THE BABYLON BEE’S WORLD. WE’RE JUST LIVING IN IT: NYT Writer Suggests Biden Government Appoint A ‘Reality Czar.’
Related: All hail the ‘reality czar!’ Another great proposal from the New York Times.
COLLUSION: Russian Spies are Behind Environmental Groups. Democrats Shrug. “It’s been well known for some time that the Russians are highly active in the environmental movement and that dates back to the Cold War. European environmentalists are a major priority, but Moscow has its tentacles in the US environmental movement as well.”
And there’s Joe Biden, using environmentalism as a justification for shutting down US energy extraction and transportation.
WHY DOES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WANT AMERICANS TO DIE? Biden Restores a Barrier to Opioid Addiction Treatment.
GIVEN THE PATHETIC RECORD OF THE “EXPERTS” ON THIS SUBJECT, LETTING EXPERTS CONTROL SPEECH ON A PANDEMIC IS CRIMINALLY STUPID: When Feds Controlled the Conversation About a Pandemic.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the model of a marketplace of ideas in which strong arguments drive out the weak has sometimes taken a beating. Erroneous theories of the virus and how it spreads, bogus data interpretations, and ineffective therapeutic ideas have spread faster than sober correction could keep up. Although the federal government was itself the source of no small amount of misinformation and confusion — most notably, though not solely, in former President Trump’s rambling White House briefings on the virus — some progressive thinkers remain convinced that the most serious way to fight a pandemic is for Washington, D.C. to lay down a central messaging line based on the thinking of authentic experts. With that line set down, so the theory goes, the other institutions of civil society, from the media to professional groups to local officialdom, should fall in line and reinforce that messaging. (Today, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee pressured Facebook, Google, and Twitter to do more to take down misinformation about Covid vaccines.)
Trouble is, when governments have achieved serious control over conversation about pandemics in the past, they’ve been known to make things much worse. Front and center is America’s experience during the lethal flu pandemic of 1918, which occurred during the wartime presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
To be fair, Wilson was arguably our worst president ever. So far.
POWERLINE: The DeSantis Dissent, Cont’d. I think this post by Scott Johnson has already been linked on Instapundit, but if you haven’t read it you should. DeSantis has hit on a very good way to fight back against Big Tech censorship. The post links to a report in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. I’ll post one paragraph from the article
DeSantis said legislation he’d support also would allow $100,000 daily fines to be levied against a company that removes a political candidate from its platform during an election campaign. Any favorable support a candidate receives from a media company in getting a campaign message out also should be reported as a political contribution, the governor said.
Here’s the first Desantis Dissent post.
CHANGE? House Republicans Prepare To Oust Liz Cheney From Leadership. “The timing of her move on the eve of the vote hurt members of the caucus she ostensibly leads, according to many members. They also cited the extreme rhetoric she used in pushing for Trump’s removal from office.”
ARCTIC PAVE HAWK: A USAF HH-60G Pave Hawk lands during combat search and rescue training in south-central Alaska. Photo taken Jan. 21, 2021. The caption says the exercise was part of a North American Air Defense Command Arctic air defense operation. Rather dramatic and eerie photo.
STRATEGYTALK: Erdogan’s Turkey wants a thumb in every pie. It’s the latest StrategyTalk podcast, looking at “neo-Ottoman” Turkey’s multiple wars and President Erdogan’s power plays. First link goes to youtube– if you like it please subscribe. If you prefer the MP3 download, visit this page. You can also subscribe via iTunes.
LET ME BE THE FIRST TO ENCOURAGE THIS KIND OF BRAVERY: Paulina Porizkova shares nude photo inspired by Elizabeth Hurley: ‘Sexy has no expiration date.’
Though I like this picture even more.
CHINA’S RED LINE RULES: Leveraging Corrupt Media, China Draws a Red Line for Biden Administration
Communist China’s top foreign policy adviser, Yang Jiechi, has spoken.
Machiavellians worldwide will credit Yang for constructing a shrewd and early “red line” test of Joe Biden using “cocktail power warfare.”
Yang’s threat comes less than a week after Chinese aircraft intruded on Taiwanese air space. That was a military show of force to test the Biden administration. Yang escalated the diplomatic challenge.
Military power, diplomatic challenge? Mix them and you’ve a cocktail of the military and diplomatic elements of power.
But information power is also in play. In the immediate background lurks Hunter Biden and his potentially billion-dollar deal with Chinese communist entities. Scrutiny and analysis and totally relevant preelection examination of the Biden family’s financial arrangements with China were suppressed by social media tech titans and anti-Trump mainstream media.
My latest Creators Syndicate column.
I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER WORD ABOUT GLENN REYNOLDS’ CARBON FOOTPRINT: John Kerry took private jet to Iceland for environmental award, called it ‘only choice for somebody like me.’
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Dear Biden Voters, You’ve Been Seriously Had.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What does it take to fully disillusion a Biden voter?
Answer: Whatever it is, Biden probably has done it twice already.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Andrew Cuomo sets new land-speed world record for flip-flopping
- Soros-backed LA DA apparently cool with paroling a Manson Family killer
- Come meet your (pasty, scraggly, whiny) oppressor
Bonus Sanity: Californians finally turning against Gavin Newsom.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
CLAIM: SpaceX violated launch license in Starship SN8 launch.
Just an observation: Last week Elon Musk sided with the Gamestop Reddit crowd, and since then he’s suddenly gotten unprecedented bureaucratic flak from the FAA and the Department of Justice.
UPDATE: A friend emails: “Re Musk’s new FAA problems — his biggest space rival Jeff Bezos gave a huge amount of money and an even bigger amount of uncounted in-kind services (e.g., Washington Post, Amazon refusal to help with vaccinations) to the Biden-Harris campaign. Payoff to Bezos and Blue? Why, that would imply a staggering level of corruption in the….no, no, it couldn’t be. Sometimes the Bezos-Musk rivalry reminds me of Scrooge McDuck vs. his rival Flintheart Glomgold. Glomgold was even South African.”
GOODER AND HARDER: Biden energy ban an economic hammer to Colorado.
Between 2021-2024, Biden’s leasing ban will eliminate 5,172 jobs annually, wipe out $2.8 billion in oil and natural gas investments, $1.3 billion in production, $546 million in much-needed tax revenue and a whopping $1.6 billion in high-paying wages.
Colorado’s neighbors to the north and south face similar threats from President Biden’s ban.
As the fifth-largest oil and natural gas-producing state, New Mexico extracts nearly half of its oil and 67% of its natural gas from leases on federal lands. Before the pandemic, tax revenue generated from oil and production overall comprised 20% of the state’s budget. With 62,000 jobs at stake, a federal leasing ban will be catastrophic for one of the country’s most poverty-stricken states.
A federal leasing ban is equally devastating for the Cowboy State. Wyoming’s oil and gas economy is dependent upon federal oil and gas leases. A federal leasing prohibition will severely impact 51% of the state’s oil production and a whopping 92% of its natural gas production.
Ouch.
TESTER AFRAID OF BEING TESTED AT BALLOT BOX: “Montana Senator Jon Tester (D) on Tuesday said President Joe Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline was a mistake. He came to the conclusion based on his personal experience as a farmer.”
IF ONLY THERE WERE SOME KIND OF EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND, CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRICES AND DEMAND: California City Raises Wages For Grocery Workers, Grocery Chain Responds Predictably. “In order to reward to work for grocery store employees, Long Beach passed the ‘Hero Pay’ measure, which increased the pay of grocery store employees by four dollars an hour. While the measure seems like it was well-intentioned, good intentions don’t balance budgets nor make the availability of products any more diverse. Long Beach officials were looking for a positive moment in the press, however, the Kroger grocery brand quickly put that to rest, by announcing that they were closing two grocery stores in the city, a Ralph’s location as well as a Food4Less store.”
WAR ON SCIENCE: Yale ignores science, mandates ONE MONTH quarantine for students returning to campus.
Cost of attending Yale University: $76,645 per year.
COMMIES LIE: Huawei’s HarmonyOS: ‘Fake it till you make it’ meets OS development. “After getting access to HarmonyOS through a grossly invasive sign-up process, firing up the SDK and emulator, and poring over the developer documents, I can’t come to any other conclusion: HarmonyOS is essentially an Android fork.”
This is actually a fun read if you’re at all interested in mobile OS development, or Huawei’s tech and sales woes since Trump sanctioned the Communist front company.
FIGHTING COLLUSION: Republicans Demand Hold on Biden Commerce Pick Over Huawei Concerns.
SHE’S DOING HER VERY BEST: Is Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki Even Trying Anymore?
ONLY A THIRD? Newsom approval plummeting with a third of voters support recall amid COVID-19 criticism, poll finds. “Gov. Gavin Newsom’s job approval rating among California voters has plummeted, driven largely by dissatisfaction over the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and adding fuel to a Republican-led recall campaign, according to a new poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. . . . California voters were almost evenly split when asked whether Newsom has done a good or bad job as governor, a precipitous drop from September when two-thirds of those polled gave him high marks. The poll, released Tuesday morning, also found that just 31% of those surveyed thought that Newsom and other state government leaders had done an excellent or good job handling the pandemic, while 23% said they had done a fair job, and 43% called it a poor job.”
Plus: “Less than half of California voters — 46% — approved of Newsom’s job performance, a dramatic slide for a governor who was elected with a historic margin of victory in 2018 over Republican challenger John Cox and defeated a slate of Democratic challengers in that year’s primary. Just four months ago, Newsom had a 64% approval rating — among the highest of any California governor in the last 50 years at the same point in their first term.”
What’s astonishing is that the numbers aren’t worse.
MAYBE THAT’S THE GOAL: 57% of Voters Say Trump Impeachment Will Further Divide America.
CIRCLING BACK: Resurfaced Tweets Haunt White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Psaki “spent years peddling the baseless Russiagate conspiracy theory,” “slamming Bernie and Trump supporters,” and last year referred to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as ‘Lady G.'”