Archive for 2022
September 14, 2022
FROM LAWRENCE PERSON: Ukraine Update for September 14, 2022.
HEH: DeSantis sends illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Hilarious, but he should have done it before Labor Day.
THE SLEEP-DEPRIVATION ALONE MIGHT ACCOUNT FOR THIS: First-Time Dads May Experience Brain Shrinkage, Scientists Find.
IT ALMOST SEEMS LIKE THEY WANT ONE: McConnell: Dems own a railroad strike now that Sanders, progressives blocked GOP proposal to stop it.
“WHY THE CANON WARS STILL MATTER.” Seriously, just say no to any further changes. Anyone who thinks at this point that the remnants of our culture need even MORE “deconstruction” is self-evidently nuts.
POLICE WHO USE DEADLY FORCE SHOULD HAVE NO MORE PRIVILEGES THAN CIVILIANS IN THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES, and no one would be making excuses for a civilian who did this:
At 11:30 p.m., Officers Ord, Marrero, and Oviatt, without any advance notice to Mr. Huff, went to Mr. Huff’s home. They parked around the corner and, wearing all black clothing, proceeded to “creep” through neighboring yards towards Mr. Huff’s residence. When Mr. Huff, who was smoking outside, saw these unidentified individuals advancing upon his home, he believed that Mr. Bejar-Gutierrez was following through on his earlier threats. He ran inside and retrieved a shotgun. He was facing the window with both hands by his side. His left hand held the shotgun by the barrel—his finger was not on the trigger and the gun was pointed at the ceiling. About 30 feet away, Officer Ord drew his weapon and, as he yelled, “Put your hands up, put your hands up!”, fired five shots at Mr. Huff. Mr. Huff, who was diving away from the window as Officer Ord opened fire, was shot in rectum and severely injured. Another round entered the room where his daughter lay sleeping.
Officer Ord attempted to justify his actions by exclaiming that Mr. Huff “came into the window with a gun,” and afterwards stated, “They are racking up in the garage,” when, in fact, Mr. Huff, bleeding profusely on the floor, was merely calling 911 for help. Mr. Huff was charged with multiple felonies, all of which were ultimately dismissed. The second is a claim for municipal liability brought against the City for its allegedly unconstitutional policies, practices, and customs.
Note the willingness of the officers to lie afterwards.
FASTER, PLEASE: MD Anderson: Many skin cancer tumors disappear with new therapy.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Freight Train Strike: The Biggest Looming Crisis You’ve Heard Almost Nothing About.
We live in a country where the (currently) ruling political party and most of the national media have a symbiotic relationship. (Jen Psaki started work at NBC News this week.) One of the problems with this dynamic is that when the ruling class decides something is important — say, emphasizing the issue of abortion as the midterm elections approach — it tends to squeeze out everything that the ruling party doesn’t want emphasized.
Don’t get me wrong; abortion is a hugely important issue to many Americans. You can read more about the abortion bill South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham proposed yesterday from Alexandra DeSanctis and Charlie Cooke and John McCormick and Kathryn Jean Lopez.
But there are a lot of other things going on in this world, and one issue that seems spectacularly under-covered — a ticking time bomb, if you will — is that starting at 12:01 a.m. Friday, about a day and a half from now, if there isn’t a new labor deal between freight-rail unions and employers, the U.S. economy will be . . . derailed.
Maybe there will be an eleventh-hour deal; I suspect many casual observers simply assume that a deal will get done because the consequences of even a brief work stoppage would be so far-reaching. But freight companies are already halting certain shipments in preparation for a potential strike, so in some ways, the consequences of a strike are already here.
Don’t worry though — the DNC-MSM will hold our transportation secretary to the fire if there’s a strike. Or not: Why Buttigieg is sparking 2024 chatter.
UPDATE: Railroad Union Rejects Proposed Labor Deal as Strike Deadline Approaches.
UPDATE (3:05 PM): Amtrak cancels all long-distance routes as strike looms.
UPDATE (5:30 PM):
(Updated and bumped.)
I SUSPECT WE’LL SEE MANY OF THESE STATES RETREAT A BIT IN A FEW YEARS: West Virginia becomes 2nd state to pass near total abortion ban.
My prediction still stands:
States won’t be able to ban interstate travel for the purpose of getting an abortion because interstate travel is a separate constitutional right. Congress will not be able to guarantee a right to abortion because its 14th Amendment power to enforce the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to abortion, which the Court has found isn’t protected under the 14th Amendment. It will not be able to either protect abortion or ban it under its commerce power because abortion isn’t interstate commerce, and is a traditional subject of state regulation.
It’ll take a few years to shake out, but we’re likely to wind up with what we would have had by 1976 or so if Roe had never been decided — a spectrum of laws around the country that will be adjusted over time based on experience and the views of the electorate. Though, of course, the norm may be stricter than it would have been without Roe, which called into being a huge pro-life movement that probably wouldn’t have existed otherwise.
It’ll be interesting to see if this reduces the flow of immigrants from blue states to red. That’ll be a measure of how much people actually care. To be honest, I kinda hope it does slow the flow.
We’ll see.
DO MORE HARM, MITCH: McConnell Devastates Biden With One Line As Disastrous Rail Strike Looms.
The number of crises the Biden administration has failed to resolve could fill the tanks of the entire fishing fleet on Deadliest Catch and then some. The serial incompetence from the Biden White House remains a pervasive characteristic that isn’t dissipating with time. We have an economy in recession, high inflation, and now a crashing stock market over the latest figures from the consumer price index, which were outright disastrous. Wall Street had its worst day in two years yesterday, wiping at least $1.5 trillion off the books.
Little do people know that this administration has tried to avert total disaster amid a rail strike set to effect Friday at midnight. Thirty percent of the nation’s freight would be shuttered, and the cost per day to the US economy will be around $2 billion. Most passenger and commuter rail services will also cease operating. Ten of the twelve major railway unions have agreed to the new agreements, though the two largest, which represent engineers and conductors, has not signed off. They still have lingering questions about sick leave and penalties for missing work. Thus far, these two are holding their ground, while the other ten unions said they would also strike in solidarity.
As Spencer wrote, the Biden White House has been trying to overcome these negotiation roadblocks since the spring. They also have no contingency plan, and airfreight is not an acceptable or efficient alternate mode of transportation for goods. The military is not also a viable option since they don’t have the training to operate the machinery.
It’s stunning that the Biden administration has been incapable of hashing out an agreement with the unions for months. Then again, when you think about it, with Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg at the head of the negotiating table—it’s not a shocking development. Joe Biden, Mr. labor union and working class, is about to own a massive rail strike that could devastate the economy even further while also cannibalizing the marginal gains Democrats have made post-inflation bill is a remarkable feat in the inept Olympics.
The irony is astounding, which was not lost on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who hurled a brutal swipe at the president and his pro-labor union bona fides.
Brutal swipes are nice, but something more . . . lasting is essential. These morons are doing serious lasting harm to America, and need to be stopped.
THE ANCHORESS: A 5 Mile Queue for ERII: Bishops Missing a God-Given Cue.
FOUR MAJOR PROBLEMS IN THE PROPOSED TITLE IX REGS: We briefly hit on two attacks on free speech and two on due process in our firm’s comment to the Department of Education about regulatory proposals that would roll back Trump-era Title IX reforms. It’s amazing how much precedent ED simply ignored. This might prove a bonanza for lawyers like me–in civil rights lawsuits, losing state insitutions pay the plaintiff’s fees–but it’s a terrible idea for colleges, students, taxpayers, and for our country.
And if you’re up for a much more comprehensive analysis of the proposed regs, check out FIRE’s comment as well.
STACEY ABRAMS REWRITES HISTORY ON THE VIEW:
Notice she’s making two different claims. First that “something happened” and people who might have voted for her were disenfranchised. And second, she’s claiming “we transformed the electorate.” But those aren’t the same things. And to the credit of David Marchese, who was conducting the interview, he immediately caught it and pressed her on it. Here was his next question:
It’s one thing to say you lost that election unfairly, and it’s another to say you won because you increased voter turnout. But can you clarify for me exactly what you’re implying when you say you “won” that election?
Again, he realized she was saying two different things at once. And here’s Abrams’s complete answer where she clarifies that she is actually saying three different things at once.
There are three things: No. 1, I legally acknowledge that Brian Kemp secured a sufficient number of votes under our existing system to become the governor of Georgia. I do not concede that the process was proper, nor do I condone that process. No. 2, I believe we won in that we transformed the electorate and achieved a dramatic increase in turnout. It was a systemic and, I think, sustainable change in the composition of the electorate and in the transformation of the narrative about Georgia and Georgia politics. Three, I have no empirical evidence that I would have achieved a higher number of votes. However, I have sufficient and I think legally sufficient doubt about the process to say that it was not a fair election.
I don’t want to belabor this forever but she’s still saying the same things, just split up differently. She’s suggesting that Kemp got the most votes but only because the process was somehow unfair. She’s literally saying “it was not a fair election.” And then she’s separately saying it was a moral victory.
So jump back to her View appearance today and she’s running with the claim that she saw her loss as a moral victory and she’s apparently leaving out everything she’s said in the past about her losing because it was an unfair election.
I say apparently because I didn’t watch this live and the full clip of her appearance hasn’t been posted on YouTube yet. So all I have are the two clips above. But based on those it really looks like she’s omitting critical parts of her previous claims about the election.
Well, yes:
Stacey Abrams claims she "never denied” her loss in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.
She’s lying. Roll the tape! pic.twitter.com/wtzEUGxAW8
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 13, 2022
BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE:
How it started:
One week after the release of her mega-hit rap song with Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP,” Joe Biden had an interview with Cardi B in which he referred to her in glowing terms. I wonder if Biden would have done so had he actually listened to the words in the song or seen the video. The song is the story of a woman who whores herself to make money; the video is a hypersexualized objectification of the female body.
The video begins with a voiceover chanting, “There’s some whores in the house.” We are told: “I don’t cook, I don’t clean, but here is how I got my ring.” To make the sex-for-money narrative clearer, Cardi B shouts, “Pay my tuition just to kiss me,” and later, “He got some money, then that’s where I am headed.”
It also presents female sexual liberation in the worst way for women, encouraging them to embrace painful, rough sex: “Never lost a fight, but I’m looking for a beating,” and, “You can’t hurt my feelings, but I like pain.”
In a video titled “WAP: Feminist Masterpiece or Porn?” the actor Russell Brand pointed to its similarities with gangsta rap and concluded, “It’s . . . ultimately a sort of capitalist objectification and commodification of, in this case, the female.” Indeed, not only does it demean women as whores, embracing rough sex, and presenting them in semi-nude seductive poses, it several times uses the N-word to give the video the same presentation found in those gangsta rap songs of a decade ago.
—“Joe Biden and Cardi B: How Can He Justify Embracing Her?”, NRO, August 26th, 2020.
How it’s going: Cardi B. Is Furious Over Inflation and Rising Housing Costs: ‘Like how are people surviving?’
—Outkick the Coverage, today.
ELECTIONS AND CRIME: Swedish PM Concedes.
Related: The Tale of the Swedish Prosecutor, the Citizen, and the Human Being.
The story is that a Swedish prosecutor successfully convicted a migrant (hailing from the Third World) for raping a Swedish twelve year old. A sentence of confinement was imposed by the court. The judge asked the prosecutor to make a recommendation in regard to whether the defendant should be deported after the period of confinement ends.
The prosecutor made a recommendation against deportation.
The prosecutor reasoned that the defendant was unlikely to be rehabilitated by confinement, and therefore, the defendant was likely to commit the same crime again. The prosecutor’s position was that whether the defendant goes on to rape a Swede (or a non-Swede in Sweden) or someone in the defendant’s own home country should not be considered because the health, safety, and lives of all potential future victims should be valued equally. And equality is a value upon which we all do or should agree.
Did the prosecutor act rightly or wrongly?
Wrongly, of course, because the prosecutor owes a special duty to protect his/her own constituents. But our Western ruling class doesn’t like that idea, because owing duties limits its freedom to do what it wants.
IT’S NOT A WAR ON GUNS, IT’S A WAR ON AMERICANS: Civilian Disarmament Chronicles: The State of Biden’s War on Guns After 18 Months.
STAY COMFORTABLE: Dockers Men’s Classic Fit Easy Khaki Pants. #CommissionEarned
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Is Showtime Doing Damage Control for The Lincoln Project? “The group is better known for seismic scandals, fleeing executives and a willingness to take down other GOP favorites … including Gov. Ron DeSantis. Does Showtime want to bring the group back from the political abyss?”
KARI LAKE COMPLETELY OUTMANEUVERS KATIE HOBBS OVER DEBATE CONTROVERSY: “Hobbs had originally demanded a separate town hall format where she wouldn’t have to face Lake. Ironically, it is now the Republican who will get that, being able to speak directly to the people of Arizona without interruption for half an hour. Of course, you can bet the moderator will still ask some tough questions, but regardless, it’s an unequivocal win for Lake. The move to ask the commission to extend the deadline is also a knife twist in the back of Hobbs. Lake gets to appear gracious and accommodating while the Democrat is forced to continue to deny the public the debate it deserves.”
IF OUR PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS WOULD START CLEANING UP THEIR ACT RIGHT NOW, IT WILL STILL BE A GENERATION BEFORE THEY’RE TRUSTED AGAIN: CDC Finally Admits It Lied About Covid Vaccine Safety Monitoring.