DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING AND THE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY:
Shot: At 100 days, Americans see Biden as more moderate than Obama.
—NBC News, April 27th.
Chaser: Biden’s 2022 budget wokeness: Mothers are now “birthing people.”
—Karen Townsend, Hot Air, today.
I DON’T THINK IT SOUNDS FAR-FETCHED AT ALL: Air Force: Using commercial rockets to deliver supplies not as far-fetched as it sounds. “We’re doing it now because it looks like technology may have caught up with a good idea.”
Plus: “We don’t see SpaceX as being the only viable provider of this capability.”
“WHY I STOPPED HIRING IVY LEAGUE GRADUATES.” I think this situation is ripe for a preference cascade. The brokenness of campus culture hurts all of us, and admins are asleep at the wheel on it.
WEIRD HOW GOVERNMENT LEAKS ALWAYS ADVANCE A LEFTIST AGENDA: Members of both parties express concern over unauthorized disclosure to ProPublica; IRS chief says agency is investigating.
Every unauthorized leak should result in a 10% budget cut. Problem solved.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Bill Maher Blasts Biden’s Idea Of Free College: ‘I’m Not F***ing Paying For That.’ “Colleges have turned into giant luxury daycare centers with overpaid babysitters …” Or worse.
QUESTION ASKED: Did Biden Peak on Inauguration Day? Covid confusion, Mideast chaos and the threat of inflation—he doesn’t have many victories to point to:
During the Chicago Cubs’ long century of futility, the old joke was that every year they peaked on Opening Day. Is it too early to wonder if Joe Biden’s presidency did the same thing?
The inauguration promise to bring healing to a fractured nation didn’t last the short ride back down Pennsylvania Avenue on Jan. 20. But what of the real Biden project that was revealed once the festivities ended: the transformation of America into a land of equity and inclusion, one that Michelle Obama could finally be proud of, that Bernie Sanders could count as Cuba’s equal, and where LeBron James could feel safe and fairly rewarded?
True, it’s no longer Opening Day, but we haven’t reached the All-Star break and already reality has bitten the geniuses in this White House harder than old Major the German shepherd did. Unlike Major, this fickle beast can’t be safely dispatched from the executive mansion and forgotten about. It has a painful way of telling you what happens when you construct an ideological dreamscape made up of impossible promises, implausible assertions and dishonest propositions.
Last week reminded us on multiple fronts that trying to govern on a prospectus of large claims at odds with the defiant reality is a perilous mission.
Further thoughts from Larry Kudlow: The Extended Vaccinated Trumpian V-shaped Recovery.
If Uncle Joe’s policies — I’m calling them his plan for a Green Workers’ Paradise — get through, then the outlook is going to turn poor: stagnation, growth recession with big inflation. If his pre-Soviet, Bulgarian approach is enacted into law, we will devalue the dollar and choke off the supply-side of the economy.
Wait a second, though — are those policies going to get through? That’s what Gerry Baker and Kim Strassel are asking, and a couple of weeks ago, when the Senate parliamentarian allowed only one 51-vote reconciliation package, I myself started getting interested in the possibility that these far-left policies just might not make it across the finish line and that the forces of growth and good and prosperity would eventually prevail.
The congressional Republican Party is completely united against the high-tax Green Workers Paradise. Increasingly it’s the Democratic congressional caucus that is divided over key issues like massive tax hikes destroying the fossil fuel energy economy.
Or like vetoing ID and eligibility so as to nationalize elections. Like permitting the Group of Seven, the European Union, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or other multilateral globalist institutions, to dictate American tax or climate policies.
There’s also a revolt going on around the country against critical race theory, itself a racist concept, canceling our culture, wokeism in the schools and everyone else, defunding the police, and the idea of equity replacing equality. At least from my perspective, there’s growing optimism in the air because there’s new pessimism among the Democratic Party. Right now not doing stuff is good because the stuff they’re talking about is not good.
And the hits just keep on coming: Kamala Harris Laughs Off Her Border Job and Jen Psaki Turns Into a Human Emoji When She’s Asked Why.
JIM TREACHER: Ellie Kemper Begs Her Tormentors for Mercy: Who needs Big Brother when you’ve got millions of Little Sisters?
It’s a good post, even though I think Treach is wrong about Trump. But here’s the thing: He can be wrong, and I can still love him. I’m a bit mystified, because he’s so good at seeing through bullshit, and he knows better than most about the corruption of the bureaucracy. But I’m not a nasty wokester, or even one of the somewhat rarer nasty non-wokesters, so I can actually still love someone who I think is wrong.
FASTER, PLEASE: Neurocables to repair nervous system injuries.
FREMONT-BASED ENOVIX SEEKS REVOLUTION IN BATTERIES, PREPS PUBLIC STOCK LAUNCH. Tech firm says mega players in consumer electronics hunger for its batteries:
Fremont-based Enovix also has begun to scout for an existing facility that could be re-tooled as a second manufacturing center in addition to the company’s existing production facilities in the East Bay.
This new center would likely be located outside California. But the new site would be an expansion of manufacturing and wouldn’t replace the existing factory line in Fremont.
What’s more, Enovix is hiring more workers in Fremont, according to the company.
All of these endeavors are being fueled by a core Enovix goal: Revolutionize the advanced battery sector.
“We are trying to completely disrupt the lithium battery industry,” said Harrold Rust, Enovix’s chief executive officer and co-founder. “The idea is to reinvent a product that hasn’t changed in 30 years.”
Enovix claims that it has crafted a battery that is more compact and can hold a considerably greater charge than conventional batteries. The materials in the battery are stacked and not wound, which reduces the size. The key material is silicon rather than conventional graphite.
“We are trying to put the silicon back in Silicon Valley,” Rust said.
First released by Sony in 1991, lithium-ion batteries have applications that include electric vehicles, laptop computers, phones, smartwatches, and tablets.
“We want our batteries to be a made-in-America product,” Rust said. “We are trying to do this in Silicon Valley.”
More power (pardon the pun) to them. As James Lileks once wrote, “This really is the future I wanted. Although I expected longer battery life.”
(Via PJM alum Michael Malone.)
UGH: The Left is gearing up to return to the Obama Administration’s wrongheaded policy on school discipline. They are claiming the Commission on Civil Rights has “discredited” the Trump Administration’s position. In reality, it was I who discredited the Commission’s position. Its report was unusually awful even by Commission standards.
To understand why the Obama Administration’s policy against “disparate racial impact in school discipline” is both counterproductive and illegal, read my article here. The Biden Administration is getting ready to make an error that will have serious long-term ramifications.
ANDREW BREITBART’S TRIUMPH OVER ANTHONY WEINER: 10 YEARS LATER:
Breitbart was a pariah. And the mainstream media treated him as such.
After Big Government’s original story published, Weiner cried foul and claimed Andrew had hacked his Twitter account to plant the false story (a federal crime.) Cable news networks were obsessed with the story and almost unanimously bought Weiner’s lies.
The pressure on Andrew and the entire staff at his “Big” websites was enormous.
Want some delicious irony? One of the most vocal skeptics attacking Breitbart during this entire escapade was none other than CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
Yes, that Jeffrey Toobin.
CNN had Andrew on to discuss our story (which was really an exercise in the CNN host attacking him and our coverage of the story). Toobin was then brought on the air to analyze the legal trouble Weiner or Breitbart might be in, depending on who one believed.
“What Andrew Breitbart was insinuating about [Weiner] with young girls and stuff is outrageous. And frankly, it’s too bad that he got to say that stuff on CNN,” Toobin said. “Look, this is a light-hearted story. This is a silly little thing that happened; it’s not a big deal.”
In the end, Breitbart (the man as well as the website) was vindicated. We were right, they were wrong… no… they were lying their butts off. But right up until the moment they couldn’t lie anymore, they accused us of the worst possible behavior, and most in the mainstream media believed them and condemned us.
Read the whole thing.
POT FOR SHOTS? Washington State Approves Free Marijuana Joints With Vaccinations.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! The Biden Administration Is Hilarious.
While researching a subject on Monday, I clicked on a link to an opinion piece hosted on CNN’s website. This news outlet is one of many media venues that serves up most of its offerings with an ancillary embedded video that is supposed to augment the reader’s experience. The video—which no one wanted to see in the first place—plays automatically, startling the reader with an unexpected aural bombardment. On this occasion, though, the intrusive video proved useful.
The clip featured President Joe Biden delivering a solemn address to the nation on Memorial Day. And though I lunged for the pause button, I was still privy to the first five seconds of the selected clip in which the president said the following: “You know, America’s been forged in the basil and the fires of war.” Go listen to the clip yourself and check my work.
Now, my first thought was that this was just another verbal flub to which Biden is prone, and he clearly wanted to say “battles.” But my second thought was less charitable: How had this not been brought to my attention for over a week? How is it that the industries built around cultural and political commentary failed to dwell on the objective hilarity of the “basil” of war? On a conceptual level alone, the potential for herb-and-spice-related puns is off the charts. Where are our caustic satirists, who spent the last four years mining every last ounce of humor out of the seemingly endless reservoir of comedy provided by our last president?
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and late night comics as the Dems’ palace guard, and it all makes sense.
Evergreen:
A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: Emails Resurface Showing Teachers’ Union Boss Randi Weingarten Dismissing Racism in New York Schools. “I was exposing what seemed to be one of the most corrupt districts in New York… but instead of fixing the problems they seemed to have encouraged it.”
BOLD MOVE: Ford Building More Mustang Mach-E EVs Than Gas-Powered Mustangs. Maybe someone should start building electrical power plants to power these?
JUST CALL IT INFRASTRUCTURE: More money flowing to Pitkin County from feds to help with homeless issues. “In April, a grant of $538,073 was approved, to be used by Recovery Resources to assist Pitkin County and other local efforts to help alleviate area homelessness. The money originates from the second major stimulus package for COVID-19 relief, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was passed by Congress in December. The first such package was the CARES Act, passed in March 2020, which funneled $570,000 to the county for homeless and housing needs.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Breaking: Judge Orders School District to Reinstate PE Teacher Who Opposed Transgender Policy.
PASS THE POPCORN: Federal Judge Orders Chicago Mayor to Explain Her Racist Interview Policy.
BUT THE NARRATIVE! EVs May Offer A ‘Negligible’ CO2 Difference From ICE Vehicles. “If the Jefferies analysis is correct (and we believe it is), then an EV will reach carbon-emission parity with an internal-combustion vehicle just as its battery requires replacement. This will come as a huge disappointment for those believing that EV adoption will have significant impacts on CO2 reduction.”
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PLAYS THE RACE CARD — ON ITSELF: National Geographic’s ‘Race Card’ Is The Kind Of Fringe Activism Conservative Brass Mocked Until It Became Policy.
In a mass email to readers, the magazine’s Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg included the six-word “Race Card” under her job title. It reads, “white, privileged, with much to learn.”
Seems harmless enough, as just another form of passive progressivism no different from the inclusion of pronoun bios. The quiet adoption of this kind of signature bio over time, however, carries the accelerated pace of defining oneself by one’s race, a dramatic escalation of the cancerous identity politics that lies at the heart of the culture war. In the divisive process, minorities are taught to believe such things as that they aren’t intelligent enough to obtain a state I.D. to vote.
Culture precedes policy. Conservatives who don’t understand that are the ones who allowed decades of campus radicalism to produce the power-players of the political establishment today. Republicans who didn’t understand that are the reason Donald Trump rose from television celebrity to American president and still remains the most popular figure in the GOP post-presidency.
There’s a reason face masks, which quickly became markers of a political stripe, remain legally required on all U.S. flights despite coronavirus cases and transmission falling so low some news organizations have even stopped weekly tracking.
It gets worse from there: Here’s an explanation for National Geographic’s editor playing the ‘race card’ in her solicitation for subscribers.
We’ve since learned that Michele Norris 10 years ago launched something called the Race Card Project, “which asks people to describe their feelings on race in just six words.” We’d never heard of it, but National Geographic began a photo essay on it a week ago.
* * * * * * * *
“All those people look miserable. I tend to avoid people like that no matter what race.”
Besides, I thought race cards were maxed out — Goldberg’s fellow leftist Jon Stewart said so himself, over a decade ago.
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