Archive for 2021
January 25, 2021
CHARLES LIPSON: Biden’s Biggest Decision.
How will President Biden resolve tensions between his party’s left wing and its establishment-corporate center? His first day in office showed one way. He will signal his virtue to progressives on hot-button issues like Keystone XL pipeline, the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and the Paris climate accord. He won’t build another new mile of border barrier. He wants a higher minimum wage. Those gestures are meant to please party activists without, he hopes, costing too much with average voters. Best of all, they don’t require any pesky, time-consuming procedures, like passing actual laws or ratifying treaties. They will be implemented by presidential orders and bureaucratic regulations
More broadly, President Biden will use EOs, bureaucratic regulations, and sub-Cabinet appointments to placate his party’s vital interest groups in education (teachers unions), criminal justice, race relations, immigration, and the environment. Important as those policies are, Biden has no intention of meeting the far-reaching socialist demands of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
They seem more or less happy to wait him out, which might not take all that much waiting.
WELL, YES, CALLING PEOPLE BIGOTS IS HATE SPEECH. Did it ever occur to the people accusing others of “hate speech” that what they are saying is interpreted as hate speech?
Plus: “I will say it again. If you are a conservative or libertarian; if you are an elected Republican at any government level; if you are a conservative or libertarian publication; delete your Twitter ($TWTR) account and end your share link with them. Go to another social media platform to spread your views. I wrote about Fascist Jack but read wealth manager Josh Brown’s take on Twitter here. Sometimes to create momentum and a movement you need to take a scalp. Twitter is a scalp that is there for the taking. Take it.”
I quit Twitter a long time ago — and, TBH, should never have gotten on it and provided them with free content to begin with. I’ve never once regretted leaving it.
AUDIO: On Hugh Hewitt, former commander of Ranger Regiment slams Salon for attacks on Sen. Tom Cotton. “I don’t know Senator Cotton. I mean, I’ve looked at a lot of his statements. And to your point, to my knowledge, he’s never claimed to have been in the Ranger Regiment, or one of the Ranger battalions. He’s always clearly stated he was in the 101st and the Old Guard. And he was a graduate of the Ranger school. So I think, and this is not the first time it’s come up.” You can be a graduate of the Ranger School and not be a member of the Ranger Regiment. In fact, lots and lots of people are.
Plus: ” I think, you know, if you really want to understand this, there’s one Ranger Hall of Fame, and that Ranger Hall of Fame is comprised of two different groups of people – people that served in the Ranger Regiment and the battalions, and people that are Ranger qualified. So clearly, the Rangers who created the Ranger Hall of Fame believe they’re both inside that umbrella.”
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The River of Forgetfulness.
We are expected to forget that for over 90 summer days, there was utter havoc in dozens of American cities. Downtowns were ravaged. Stores were looted. Arson was customary. More than 700 police were injured and spat upon. In all, those “mostly peaceful” protests did billions of dollars in damage, leaving thousands of business owners bankrupt, and at least three-dozen people dead.
In other words, the visuals were the same old, same old we had seen during the violent 2017 Inauguration Day protests in Washington, the rioting in Ferguson and Baltimore, in New York during the final stages of the Occupy Wall Street take over, and the WTO violence over two decades ago in Seattle—with one major exception. This time the authorities saw far more election-year political advantage in defending the violence than in suppressing it, and so made the necessary adjustments, at least until Election Day.
The mayors of the targeted cities like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and Minneapolis contextualized and supported the mayhem (“block party” and “summer of love”). They cared little for the thousands of lives that were wrecked by the destruction.
Joe Biden excused Antifa as a mere “idea” (a presidential ante facto impeachable offense?)—largely because millions of his supporters condoned or explained away the violence, and they said so publicly. The New York Times architect of the “1619 Project,” Nikole Hannah-Jones boasted at the height of the unrest, “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.” She’s lucky none of the oppressed took her literally or seriously enough to storm the New York Times. One wonders what is the further utility of BLM and Antifa after the Biden election, and whether erstwhile dead-ender “protestors” may now be recategorized as “rioters” given the suddenly bad optics.
Of course, some of us haven’t forgotten: Pelosi and Biden Get Hoisted on Their Own Petard With Latest Antifa Video.
DO NOT TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE. China: America Probably Created The Virus, You Know.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Rand Paul smackdown of George Stephanopoulos is what media deserve.
REFILL THE SWAMP: Hickenlooper Taps Lobbyist to Lead Senate Office.
ANIMATED POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY: It’s a jointly produced product from the Capitol Research Center (CRC) and Dangerous Documentaries, and it’s first episode of the first season (10 episodes, each 10-12 minutes long) debuts this week.
While we’re here, don’t miss CRC’s recent vidumentary on George Soros funding radically lefties seeking local prosecutorial offices. Soros has had a lot of success in this particular effort and is in part responsible for the spiraling crime rates in those jurisdictions, including Philadelphia and Chicago.
PORTMAN OUT: Ohio’s U.S. Sen. Rob Portman won’t run for re-election; Republican cites ‘partisan gridlock.’ “Portman still has $5 million in his campaign account and would’ve been a heavy favorite to be re-elected in 2022. He has never lost an election, winning all of them by double-digit margins. It’s expected to remain a safe seat for Republicans, who’ve been tightening their grip on Ohio for the past decade. Potential GOP candidates for Portman’s seat include: Congressman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken, former state treasurer Josh Mandel and ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ author J.D. Vance.”
THE CORPORATE STATE: Through an obscure startup named Rebellion Defense, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt attempts to buy his way into the Biden White House. “The Biden administration will need to tread carefully to avoid Big Tech taking over functions of government. Early in Obama’s presidency, Google representatives attended more than one White House meeting a week, leading some to jokingly call the administration Google.gov. More than 250 Google employees moved back and forth between the company and government during the Obama years. Schmidt is now poised to have even more sway within the new White House.”
Everything is worse in reruns.
IF YOU SEE MONKEYS AND THINK OF BLACK PEOPLE, YOU’RE THE RACIST: University axes ‘three wise monkeys’ from conference promotion due to ‘racial stereotypes.’ “Experts in the field differ: ‘The monkey is a sacred being. They are vehicles of delight.’”
Universities are now largely run by ignorant people concerned that other people might be offended by things they don’t understand.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: ‘CCP Joe’ Welcomes Communist Firms Back into U.S. Energy Grid.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: Is it good news that President Joe Biden turns out to be one of those honest politicians who stays bought?
Answer: Not when he’s a majority-owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party, it isn’t.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Prime Minister Zoolander feeds the mouth that bit him
- Woman who knitted those Bernie Sanders meme mittens driven out of business by feds
- Who turned off the lights at the White House?
Bonus Sanity: You aren’t losing your mind — Joe is.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
THE CDC IS A FAILED ORGANIZATION THAT SHOULD BE ABOLISHED BECAUSE OF ITS RECORD OF FAILURE: Reuters: CDC’s early COVID response “marred by . . . career scientists and frontline staff.”
THEY ALREADY HAVE, AND HE’S JUST GETTING STARTED. NEXT QUESTION? Will Biden’s Policies Lead to Job Losses? Here Are Possible Economic Impacts of 4 of Them.
HIS PEOPLE DON’T WANT HIM TO: Biden’s Not Healing the Nation.
PRIVACY: WhatsApp loses millions of users after terms update. “The exodus was so large that WhatsApp has been forced to delay the implementation of the new terms, which had been slated for 8 February, and run a damage limitation campaign to explain to users the changes they were making.”
WhatsApp claims they won’t share data with parent company Facebook, but for some reason, no one seems to believe them.