THE UNITED STATES IS A WORLD LEADER, HAVING ADMINISTERED ROUGHLY A THIRD OF THE TOTAL GLOBAL DOSES: More Than 35 Million Shots Given: Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker: The U.S. has administered 11.9 million doses; Europe’s rollout begins.
Archive for 2021
January 15, 2021
DAVID BERNSTEIN: Trump is the only president in decades who has appealed to a particular segment of the American electorate.
Trump, to almost everyone’s surprise, wins. So how do big government, big business, elite experts and so on, i.e., the establishment, react, from his fans’ perspective? Without even giving Trump a chance, they decree that he is illegitimate, that he needs to be resisted, and that his voters are beyond redemption; “this is 1932 in Germany” was not a rare reaction.
So, from these voters’ perspective, the one time in their lifetimes and much longer a president comes around who really speaks to their worldview, the establishment tries to destroy him. Rather than the anti-Trump sentiment persuading them, it makes them stronger supporters, people who see Trump as their weapon against an establishment that disparages them.
Yes. The contempt is the biggest source of poison here. But feeling contempt for “deplorables” is a major source of self-esteem for insecure gentry-class types.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Commie Idiot AOC Is Still the Dumbest Bartender In America. “Squeaky hasn’t been in the news as much as she likes lately because America has been rather preoccupied with plague and election stuff. She’s been lurking though, waiting for the briefest of lulls in any news cycle so she could painfully remind sane people that she’s still here.”
ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A CONSERVATIVE? Red-State Scare: The Blacklist Arrives.
If you’re not part of Twitter, and media Twitter at that, you will be blessedly ignorant of a HUGE controversy today. The political news and commentary website Politico asked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to guest-edit today’s edition of its morning Playbook feature. Shapiro is completely within the conservative mainstream, but that did not stop the Politico staff from freaking out. Erik Wemple is the Washington Post media columnist:
It’s the Atlantic and New York Times crybully staffers melting down over Kevin Williamson and Tom Cotton all over again, as any pretense towards journalism is replaced by safetyism.
Evergreen:
ONLY THE PART THAT REPORTS NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT DEMOCRATS: AOC and other progressives have a new goal: Silence the press.
IT’S A FAIR COP: CNN, Fox, and MSNBC blamed ‘very strongly’ for dividing nation. But Facebook — and especially Twitter — are even worse.
NOW THEY TELL US: COVID Lockdowns Have No Clear Benefit vs Other Voluntary Measures, International Study Shows.
After Chicago’s mayor announced she wanted “bars and restaurants to reopen for indoor dining ‘as quickly as possible’” yesterday, Noah Rothman tweeted, “Major metro mayors are on a mission to retroactively validate everything lockdown skeptics have said for months only to have their motives questioned and characters impugned.” And those mayors are far from alone, at the dawn of the Harris Biden era.
Exit question:
BLUE STATE BLUES: They Can’t Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough
Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn’t like you. If you lived in San Francisco, you might have commuted an hour south to your job at Apple or Google or Facebook. Or if your office was in the city, maybe it was in a neighborhood with too much street crime, open drug use and $5 coffees.
But it was worth it. Living in the epicenter of a boom that was changing the world was what mattered. The city gave its workers a choice of interesting jobs and a chance at the brass ring.
That is, until the pandemic. Remote work offered a chance at residing for a few months in towns where life felt easier. Tech workers and their bosses realized they might not need all the perks and after-work schmooze events. But maybe they needed elbow room and a yard for the new puppy. A place to put the Peloton. A top public school.
They fled. They fled to tropical beach towns. They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida.
Actually, the deal was this: California was where the high-paying tech jobs were, take it or leave it.
Given the opportunity, they’ll leave it.
ALANA NEWHOUSE: Everything is Broken: And how to fix it.
PRIVACY: WhatsApp privacy controversy causes ‘largest digital migration in human history.’
The Facebook-owned app send a notification to all of its 2 billion users forcing them to accept its privacy policy before 8 February, or else lose access to their account.
WhatsApp’s new Terms of Service includes a data-sharing agreement with Facebook, which prompted widespread condemnation from digital rights and privacy advocates.
The new policy does not effect users in the UK and Europe but it has once again raised concerns about the relationship between the world’s most popular messaging app and Facebook.
People across social media, including Elon Musk and Edward Snowden, encouraged WhatsApp users to switch to more privacy-focused alternatives, such as Signal and Telegram.
My guess is that Facebook saw this coming, but figured they’d still make more money with the data-mining they’d get out of everyone who remains.
COME BACK JOSEPH MCCARTHY, ALL IS FORGIVEN:
● NASA Researcher Pleads Guilty to Concealing China Ties.
● MIT professor charged with hiding work for China.
● Harvard Professor Arrested for Allegedly Lying About Income From China.
Earlier: The Bill Is Coming Due For China’s ‘Capitalist’ Experiment, West Must Prepare For Fallout:
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has re-awoken to a profound truth: Rich, secure capitalists are the natural enemies of authoritarian regimes. In a hybrid autocratic-capitalist model, capitalism is the means to generate wealth, but power is the end goal. Successful capitalists naturally begin to demand that their personal and property rights be protected from authoritarian fiat. Capital in the hands of entrepreneurs is a political resource; it poses a threat to the implementation of centralized plans.
Realizing this, the CCP has begun to assert control over the private sector by “installing . . . Party officials inside private firms” and having state-backed firms invest in private enterprises. In the absence of civil rights or an independent judiciary, “private” companies have no real independence from the government in China. Dissent and demands for civil rights are a threat to the regime and will be crushed.
Read the whole thing.
China has also installed a fair shair of “party officials inside private firms” with businesses that aren’t Chinese-owned as well:
● US companies riddled with members of Chinese Communist Party.
● Big four accounting firms employ hundreds of Chinese Communist Party members.
Flashback from November of 2019: How to Conduct Business with Chinese Companies That See a Dark Future.
Related: ‘New Window Of Hope:’ Top Chinese Official Sees Improved Relations With Biden Administration.
NO, NO. WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE KEY TO STOPPING THIS NONSENSE: Manchin Key to Thwarting New Gun-Control Legislation, Second Amendment Groups Say.
HOW’S THAT UNITY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? AOC Wants a Gov’t Commission to ‘Rein in’ Media to Prevent ‘Disinformation.’
THEN WE DO NOT LIVE IN A FREE SOCIETY TODAY: Adlai Stevenson: “My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
THEY’RE OBSESSED WITH RACE: Biden Further Embraces Racism.
THIS IS AN OLDER ARTICLE, BUT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER WHAT IT SAYS: The Rise and Fall of Facts.
THEY’VE DONE FALSE BLAG BEFORE, AND THEY’LL DO IT AGAIN: I Saw Provocateurs At The Capitol Riot On Jan. 6.
THE LEFT SHOULD BE AWARE: Ohio Focus Group, 77 Percent Like Trump More, 23 Percent Same Opinion, Zero Percent Like Less.
Of course, they are. Which is why there will be false flag atrocities this this weekend, and the “horror” from it will mean that they “must” suppress all those evil right wingers who still support Trump. Or at least the vocal ones. Pour encourager les autres.
HOW LONG WILL WE TOLERATE THIS? A Domestic Terrorism Bill Only Antifa Could Love.
THIS IS WHAT BLOCKED MY THOUGHT AND WORK SINCE MARCH: The ‘Good American’.
SHOCKED, SHOCKED, SHOCKED: The private-sector purge is beginning.