Archive for 2022
July 20, 2022
IT’S ONLY AN “INSURRECTION” WHEN REPUBLICANS DO IT: Capitol Police Release Damning Facts, Slam DOJ Decision to Not Charge the ‘Colbert Nine.’ “If you read the entire statement, it’s abundantly clear that this was not just a misunderstanding brought about by a group of people who weren’t aware of the rules. They were informed multiple times over multiple days via multiple incidents that they could not be in any of the Capitol buildings without a credentialed escort. Earlier on June 16th, they had been escorted out of the Capitol Rotunda and told the rules. Their intent to ignore the law in order to harass GOP members isn’t in doubt.”
And Merrick Garland is a political hack of the first order. He didn’t belong on the Supreme Court, and he’s not even fit to be Attorney General.
READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro Wireless Earbuds with MagSafe Charging Case. #CommissionEarned
ENDORSED: Patanjali Kambhampati: My ‘lived experience’ tells me that diversity, inclusion and equity is antithetical to human liberty. “My experiences as a Third World immigrant to the United States have led me to be a lifelong defender of the practices of merit, fairness and equality.”
ROGER KIMBALL: On Not Saying “I Told You So.”
Don’t you hate when people say “I told you so?”
It’s especially galling when they’re right.
So, I won’t say “I told you so” to the anti-Trump sorority who had their knickers in a twist over Trump’s “character” (and here) while Joe Biden sat in his basement gibbering vacantly while counting the pelf he and his family had raked in from the Chinese and other influence seekers.
“Oh, but at least Joe Biden acts like an adult. At least he will reestablish an atmosphere of normality in The White House.”
Did you think so? I didn’t.
The problem with trying to assess the Biden administration is that none of our usual metrics work any longer.
Biden’s poll numbers are panic-inducing.
The last I checked, his approval rating was 30 percent. Thirty.
Still, the free fall we are witnessing is too rapid for our usual instruments to register accurately.
Signs were there from the beginning, from before the beginning, as some of us were pointing out.
But I suppose the signs became incontrovertible when Biden presided over our disastrous leave-taking in Afghanistan last summer about this time.
Overnight, we made the Taliban the best-armed terrorist group in the world, bequeathing them billions in state-of-the-art U.S. weaponry.
We also stood by and did nothing after 13 U.S. servicemen were murdered by irate locals.
“Never,” wrote one commentator at the time, “have I witnessed a greater, swifter collapse of competence than what I have seen with the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan was a line in the sand.
Since then it has been one disaster after the next.
So many it is hard to keep track.
Our southern border: essentially gone.
Inflation: at a 40-year high.
Gas prices: at historic highs.
The economy: stuttering to a standstill or worse. We just had two quarters of negative growth, i.e., we are in a recession.
Our foreign policy: a joke.
And the punchline to that joke?
The most recent one involves Joe Biden’s affectionate little fist bump with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his recent visit.
It wasn’t so long ago that Biden describe MBS as a “pariah.”
Even a few weeks ago, he said he would not meet with the smooth but deadly de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
But that was before the reality of high gas prices in the United States swam into the consciousness of the leader of the free world.
Biden came away from that tour with—nothing.
Plus: “I almost feel sorry for the Democrats (emphasis on the adverb). They are saddled—rather, they have saddled themselves—with a disaster. They pushed this corrupt, incompetent, senile fool on us. Now they must pay the price.”
They’re paying a price. But ultimately it’s America that’s paying the price.
DE-DOLLARIZATION: Turkey Looks to Ditch Dollar in Payments for Russian Energy. “Turkish officials say the nations are considering using lira.”
WHY THE LEFT HATES THE CONSTITUTION: It’s all about power and not being blocked from its exercise by those pesky articles and amendments, says The Washington Stand’s Rob Schwarzwalder.
OOPS: Russia shoots down their own advanced jet just weeks after delivery.
Russia took delivery on a handful of advanced Su-34M fighter bombers late last month, and one has already been shot down over Ukraine. It wasn’t Ukrainian forces who managed to down the twin-seat jet, however… It was Russia’s own air defenses.
Over the weekend, video emerged of Russian forces downing a jet operating over Eastern Ukraine, though at the time, it was unclear exactly what type of aircraft they had intercepted. The footage was uploaded to Telegram by a Russian war correspondent with a history of being sanctioned by foreign nations for spreading disinformation and propaganda on behalf of Moscow.
It wasn’t long before the wreckage of the aircraft was located, and upon inspection, it soon became apparent that it was actually one of just ten or fewer Su-34Ms in existence, with a registration number of RF-95890.
It’s war. These things happen. But I can’t help but note that these nine or ten of Russia’s most advanced fighter-bombers are variations on a 1990 design based on the Su-27 airframe that first flew in 1977.
WHAT’S UNBEARABLE IS THAT WOKE WHITE PEOPLE’S NEUROSES ARE DRIVING POLICY: Professor: ‘Unbearable’ that white people dominate discussions about ‘climate anxiety.’
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: More Tragic Consequences of Democrats’ Open Borders Folly. “If we’re ever going to effectively push back against the false narrative, more Republican politicians are going to have to do the same.”
KATIE PAVLICH: Biden Energy Advisor Makes Revealing Comments While Discussing Gas Prices on CNN. “During his remarks, Hochstein said the White House does not want oil and gas companies embarking on new projects and that they are working to accelerate the current, extremely painful and unaffordable transition to alternative energy.”
BRETT KAVANAUGH’S NEIGHBORS: “The vast majority of people here are pro-choice. And the very vast majority of people here think that these protesters have gotten out of control.”
Protests at federal judges’ homes are illegal, and if pro-lifers had targeted Elena Kagan people would have been locked up already while the media screamed “mob rule!” and “insurrection!”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Broke Colleges Resort to Mergers for Survival: Takeovers increase as a shakeup in higher education leaves schools in trouble.
Students continue to pack into flagship universities and brand-name colleges. Less-prestigious schools are struggling. The number of colleges closing down in the past 10 years, around 200, has quadrupled compared with the previous decade.
And in the past four years, there have been 95 college mergers, compared with 78 over the prior 18 years, according to data compiled by the consulting group EY Parthenon. In the past two months, St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia absorbed the crosstown University of the Sciences, and Boston College announced it will absorb Pine Manor College, also in the Boston area.
Schools merge to broaden their enrollment base, diversify programs, expand facilities and create efficiencies of scale. About 40% of mergers involve private, nonprofit schools, and the majority involve schools within the same state and with fewer than 5,000 students. Public university systems with excess capacity have made or are considering mergers in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin.
The stress they face is driven by rising costs for college and uneven return on investment, which has diminished public confidence in higher education, opened the door to competitors and led to falling enrollment.
In 2019, 51% of American adults considered a college degree to be “very important,” down from 70% in 2013, according to a Gallup poll. Positive perceptions of college among adults 18 to 29 fell the fastest of any group, to 41% from 74%.
All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
FOLLOW THE MONEY: Semiconductor Update. “So who expects to earn immediate gains from the taxpayers subsidizing semiconductors? Would you believe Nancy Pelosi?”
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY AND PORTLANDIA: Portland Lesbian bar shuts down one week after opening because they weren’t woke enough.
Doc Marie’s is a lesbian bar that opened on July 1st of this year with the hope of bringing more inclusivity to the city of Portland. But just one week after their grand opening they were forced to shut down because of complaints that the bar was not a “safe space.” Similar to the story I wrote a few weeks ago about the queer-owned cafe in Philadelphia that was shut down by employees for not being woke enough, Doc Marie’s was cannibalized by the woke mob.
The crowd on opening day was huge. One woman said that the line for entry on opening night was “wrapped around the block” with “literally 200 lesbians” waiting to get in.
But the excitement about a new progressive hangout dissipated quickly. Within days, Doc Marie’s found itself on the receiving end of accusations of not being inclusive enough for trans people and people of color. Despite mask mandates being lifted in Portland, patrons accused the bar of not implementing enough COVID safety measures. Patrons also claimed that Doc Marie’s had “culturally appropriative art” on the walls.
Exit quote: “Surrendering to the woke mob doesn’t appear to be working out in Doc Marie’s favor, as the bar remains closed with no public plan to reopen.”
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE: Influential Law Professors Urge Supreme Court to Not Expand Qualified Immunity. To be honest, I’d like to see them eliminate it. It has no basis in the Constitution.
HE DID, AND HE PROBABLY WILL: Most say Biden profited off Hunter’s deals — will get away with it. “As much as the media and Democratic leaders have tried to hide the issue, not only are most voters paying attention to first son Hunter Biden’s money scandals but they believe President Joe Biden cashed in and that they won’t face any charges.”
We live in a banana republic.
SCHOOL RESTORES MASK MANDATE: The insanity in the public school system just keeps getting more and more blatant. And check out this report on the student body in San Francisco public schools.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: A feckless American foreign policy’s legacy. “One idea in particular is going to have to go. Following the Cold War, the American foreign-policy establishment embraced the tragically misguided belief that we could set aside traditional forms of great-power competition and balance-of-power diplomacy while focusing our efforts on “global issues” like human rights, climate change and the construction of an ever-stronger set of international institutions operating under an ever-more-pervasive system of international law.”
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: The Recruiting Crisis Has Arrived, Part One.
So the Army and Marines haven’t reached that stage of crisis yet, but it’s getting close. In response to the “really bad” recruiting crisis, the Army is losing force structure and what is known as endstrength as well. Think of it this way, force structure are the units, and endstrength is the personnel who form those units into cohesive organizations capable of performing their missions. How bad is this? Well, according to a July 19th, 2022 Military.com article, “Army officials on Tuesday said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer. Army Gen. Joseph Martin, vice chief of staff for the Army, said it is projecting it will have a total force of 466,400 this year, down from the expected 476,000. And the service could end 2023 with between 445,000 and 452,000 soldiers, depending on how well recruiting and retention go.” . . .
Every year, the Army has the greatest recruiting burden because it is the largest service with a huge variety of requirements for personnel. It also just isn’t the Active Duty Army as the Military.com article would have you believe, but also the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. Maintaining an almost 1.1 million person Army means all three components of the Army need to recruit somewhere in the 80,000 range every year, regardless of what else happens, because there’s a substantial amount of attrition through retirements, medical retirements, ending enlistments and the Army booting people out of the service for just about every reason you can think of, and perhaps a few more to boot. And so there’s an odd competition that occurs within the Army, as all three components are recruiting from the same mass of citizenry who happen to meet the entry requirements and are willing to give Ol’ Sam a few years in uniform in exchange for a daily couple of hots and a cot, a decent salary, housing, education benefits and medical/dental insurance on the cheap. The Army also competes against the Marines, the Air Force, the Navy, the Space Force, the Coast Guard, colleges and universities, trade schools, the Little Sisters of the Poor and the League of Women Voters. Ok, those last two are exaggerations, however, the Army faces immense competition which is only getting more intense as corporations are now offering a lot of the same benefits that Uncle Sam used to provide, but without the same perks as sitting in the back of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle at NTC in August, or unloading ammo from a truck in northeastern Poland at 2330 one February evening.
The real problem is that — after the Afghanistan debacle, which everyone remembers but which respectable people aren’t supposed to talk about because it’s bad for Democrats — people know that the higher command won’t have their back, and won’t support their missions. Add to that the increasing degree of woke idiocy and bigotry aimed at the biggest cohort of enlistees and, well, why?