WELL, FIRST OF ALL IT WAS IN BALTIMORE: FDA Details Failures at Baltimore Plant That Spoiled Vaccine Doses.
Archive for 2021
June 13, 2021
OLD POST ROAD OILS makes women’s specialty soap too.
‘THIS WASN’T WELL THOUGHT OUT:’ Pride’s tweet sending out lots of pride looks kind of…Iranian.
As Obama’s Middle East “advisor” Ben Rhodes famously said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.” The same goes for those who create social media content for corporations and non-profit organizations. They really know nothing of how Ben Rhodes’ buddies in the Middle East operate: ISIS Hurls Gay Men Off Buildings, Stones Them: Analysts.
FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO PROPAGANDIZE: Left-wing educators hold rallies to protest bans on teaching critical race theory in schools.
MARK LEVIN: The Coup Against Benjamin Netanyahu.
WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH BILL MAHER IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Bill Maher on “progressophobia.”
His point here is evergreen but feels timely on Loving Day.
My one quibble with what he says is that I don’t think the left sincerely believes things are worse now than ever. Even the fringier Democrats in Congress would acknowledge that modern America is more inclusive than it used to be — if the question were squarely put to them. How could they not? The sea change in public opinion on gay marriage, for instance, is a matter of simple statistical fact.
But Maher’s right insofar as you’ll rarely hear a progressive volunteer that progress has been made. To acknowledge progress is to invite complacency about injustices that remain, or so they seem to believe. Most will do it if they’re cornered, knowing that they’ll sound nutty if they insist with a straight face that America in 2021 is more racist than it was in 1950. (There are stalwarts who’ll venture to make even that argument.) But it has to be dragged out of them. The closest they get to acknowledging it spontaneously is when they complain that X is the “new Jim Crow,” whether X happens to be Georgia’s new voting law or increasing a local police budget or what have you. That’s an admission that the very recent status quo was, uh, not Jim Crow.
Each political party is these days centrally identified by its hatred of the other. Yet the Right concedes points made by the Left all the time; paleoconservatives, for instance, tend to agree with the Left’s framing of the Iraq War as an unnecessary and misguided adventure. Several National Review contributors have called for criminal-justice reform, with a particular focus on unduly harsh sentences for nonviolent offenders and the nightmare of civil-asset forfeiture without due process. This publication declared “The War on Drugs Is Lost” back in 1996.
By contrast, when you sign on to the progressive cause, you know that ostracization and obloquy from your own side will attach to you like a traveling chorus of hecklers should you ever concede conservatives are sometimes correct. Unless you set out with the full expectation of being damned as a contrarian and a party-pooper for adhering to principle, you will find it exhausting always to be pushing back, to be damned to eternity on the intellectual Nautilus. Much easier, and more natural, is to just relax and accept the constant pull to the left. To put it another way, once you board the progressive choo-choo, it won’t stop until it reaches Crazy Town.
Leftists suffering from “Selma envy” also won’t answer America’s inclusiveness has improved radically since 1963, for the same reason that won’t answer the question of “In a Welfare State, How Much Is ‘Enough’?” “There’s no such thing as enough, as far as they’re concerned. That’s what the Greeks thought.”
BOGUS POLITICIZED HISTORY IN THE SPIRIT OF THE 1619 PROJECT: Emory Professor: The Second Amendment ‘was designed’ to keep ‘African Americans powerless and vulnerable.’
Emory was also the home of disgraced and dishonest former Second Amendment historian Michael Bellesiles.
“A DELTA PILOT PARKED A PLANE IN THE DESERT AT THE HEIGHT OF THE PANDEMIC AND LEFT A NOTE IN THE COCKPIT. Another pilot found it 435 days later:”
EVERGREEN HEADLINE: Germany is a Bad Ally.
Biden and Secretary of Antony Blinken reversed course [from President Trump’s hardline approach to Germany], however, and sought to prioritize smooth relations with Berlin. On May 19, 2021, Blinken announced that the United States would wave sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, its chief executive officer Matthias Warnig, and its corporate officers even though Blinken insisted the U.S. opposition to the Russian-backed pipeline was “unwavering.” Blinken explained the logical dissonance of the move as an effort to fulfill “the President’s pledge to rebuild relationships with our allies and partners in Europe.”
The logic behind this calculation, however, is tenuous. Put aside the irony that Biden and Blinken have now promoted pipelines for the Taliban and Russia while killing those from which the United States could benefit. If climate change were truly the “greatest threat to America” as Biden told U.S. troops during his visit to Europe, then he would increase his opposition to Nord Stream 2, not green light its completion.
Nor should German complaints of ease matter. It would have been logistically easier during the Cold War to let the Soviet bloc supply West Berlin but the United States went so far as to airlift supplies to the city during the Soviet’s 1948-49 blockade.
Biden and Blinken may associate acquiescence to Berlin with sophisticated diplomacy and may assume that Germany stands for the same values as the United States, but this would be a mistake. Simply put, Germany is neither a good ally nor does its leadership share the same liberal, democratic worldview as the United States.
As Mark Steyn has written regarding Angela Merkel, “You can take the girl out of East Germany, but you can’t take the East Germany out of the girl.”
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: What ProPublica Gets Wrong About the Wealthy and Taxes.
ProPublica obtained the tax returns of the richest Americans and discovered what every informed person already knew: They don’t pay as much in income taxes as some people would like them to. This is being called a great scandal by many Democrats and liberal journalists.
Meanwhile, that these returns were almost surely leaked by someone at the IRS seems not to bother a lot of the same people. There’s no way ProPublica got this information from dozens of high-priced accountants and attorneys. Barring the possibility that this was a computer hack—which itself would be a monumental scandal—this is outrageous. Weaponizing the IRS for political purposes is not just a crime, it is a long-term political disaster.
But I want to focus on the fake scandal.
Billionaires often pay little in income taxes because billionaires don’t typically make their money from a salary. Billionaires exist for the most part because they own assets—stocks, businesses, commodities, property, etc.—and the paper value of those assets amounts to the bulk of their wealth. And in America, we do not tax wealth.
Nor should we.
Let’s say you collect baseball cards. On paper, your collection is worth a bundle. But its real value is realized only when you sell it. Do you think the IRS should tax you every year for what your collection could be worth if you sold it? Do you want the IRS to tax you for the value of your wedding ring—not at purchase, but forever—even if you’re never going to sell it?
The same principle applies to other unrealized gains. If your stock portfolio increases in value, you get taxed on your gains when you sell.
ProPublica ignores all this. “We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period,” they explain. “We’re going to call this their true tax rate.”
Except it’s not a true tax rate.
Read the whole thing.
Related: Return of the IRS Scandal. “This still leaves the real scandal, which is that someone leaked confidential IRS information about individuals to serve a political agenda. This is the same tax agency that pursued a vendetta against conservative nonprofit groups during the Obama Administration. Remember Lois Lerner? This is also the same IRS that Democrats now want to infuse with $80 billion more to chase a fanciful amount of uncollected taxes. As part of this effort, Mr. Biden wants the IRS to collect ‘gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts from financial institutions.’ Why? So the information can be leaked to ProPublica? The IRS says it has begun an investigation into the tax-return disclosure, and by all means send the guilty to prison. But Congress should also not trust the IRS with any more power and money than it already has.”
MICHAEL YON REPORTS from Chiapas, Mexico.
HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Montana, the sold-out state New Yorkers can’t get enough of.
THROW THE BUMS OUT: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich joins 2022 race to oust Mark Kelly.
OLD AND BUSTED: Can Greeks Become Germans?
The New Hotness? Turks Enraged as Ancestry.com Reveals the Truth: Most of Them Are Greeks.
SHARYL ATTKISSON: Read Donald Trump statement: I was right all along.
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Critical Race Theory Opponents Win Board Elections at Nation’s Top High School.
HELEN TRIES IT: This week I had the pleasure of reading Professor Carol’s book Why Freshmen Fail: and How to Avoid It! I know you are no longer supposed to call college students freshman (it’s sexist and classist, yawn) but this is what makes Professor Carol’s book so refreshing. She lays out exactly in a non-PC straightforward manner for students and their parents how to make the most of the first year. She really gets how 18-year-olds think and has no qualms with helping them figure out if college is even the right choice in a chapter called “Why am I here?” She discusses “real life” and how it is often unfair even though students have been told by adults how everything is equal (yeah, sure). She has a chapter on how to get along with your professors by nodding, even if the nodding is insincere. Just this simple gesture can help a student earn a better standing in the class. My favorite chapter is “What Not to Say” that describes the PC atmosphere and how to maneuver it without losing your mind. I could have used this when I was in grad school. Get the book for your child, grandchild or as a gift for anyone you know going to college in the fall, it is really helpful. I have verified this listing at Helen’s Page. (Bumped)
COMRADE ROCKSTAR: Dean Reed may be the biggest rock star that you’ve never heard of. An American from Colorado, Reed was a huge star in the Communist Bloc, but not in his native land. “Comrade Rockstar” is just one of the nicknames that have been conferred upon him over the years.
His failure to make it in America was not for lack of trying. Born to a Goldwater-supporting family, he left for Hollywood in the late 1950s, where he got a contract with Capitol Records. Alas, his records never took off in this country.
For some reason, however, his music was especially popular in Latin America. He therefore moved down there in the early 1960s (during which he began his political lurch leftward). From there, he went on to Europe, finally winding up in the early 1970s in East Germany, where they absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it, loved him and his music. Communist bloc teens swooned. To them, he was “the Red Elvis.”
Reed always professed to love America, and the lyrics to his songs sometimes reflected this, but he seemed to spend as much time denouncing the United States as he spent singing, songwriting, and acting in movies. Of course, denouncing the United States is pretty common among rock musicians. But Reed’s wholesome style (by the standards of the time) made him different. Here, for example, he sings “Bye Bye Love” with Phil Everly. No wonder the Communist Bloc authorities encouraged his rise to stardom, while condemning what they viewed as degenerate forms of music.
Reed died on this day in 1986 at the age of 47. Six weeks earlier, he had appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes — one of the rare occasions on which his by then fading fame was acknowledged in the Western media. During that interview, he defended the building of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and compared Reagan to Stalin.
Although officially recorded as an accident, Reed’s death was almost certainly a suicide. His body was found in knee-deep water in Zeuthener Lake a few miles outside Berlin. His wrists were slashed, and he had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. A suicide note was later found. “Wholesome” musical style or not, he was an all-too-obvious troubled soul.
FOREIGN COLLUSION: Qatar Behind Hostile Israel Statements From American Universities.
June 12, 2021
OPEN THREAD: I call and whisper sounds to you at the speed of light.