KATIE PAVLICH: Biden Gives Tired, Lie Filled Closing Argument As Dems Stare Down a Red Wave.
What else has he (read: his speechwriters) got?
Archive for 2022
November 2, 2022
“MISINFORMATION” JUST MEANS “IDEAS WE DON’T LIKE.”
THE TYRANNY OF A COVID AMNESTY:
Oster lists among the urgent issues of the day the learning loss experienced by children as a consequence of Covid policy, with the youngest and poorest hardest-hit. She notes the drop-off in routine vaccinations (also a consequence of Covid policy). To this list we might add the rise in non-Covid excess deaths, also a consequence of Covid policy, not to mention the stagnant economy and the rocketing inflation rate.
And these are all downstream of a pandemic-era public discourse that felt like the Brexit/Trump wars on steroids: a battle for class dominance, in which one side used its stranglehold on public institutions to frame censorship as “fact-checking”, and all dissenters as stupid, unscientific, or actively hateful. It’s not that “we” collectively tried to get it right, and “mistakes were made”. It’s that a self-righteous cabal arrogated to themselves a priestly right to determine the proper social order, and to excommunicate those who didn’t conform. Their record in securing the common good speaks for itself.
Public faith in objectively shared political ground was already dissolving while my daughter gestated. If the Virtuals have a problem now, it’s that their counter-volley to Trump and Brexit consumed the last vestige of trust in that shared political ground: our faith in science. And the notion that such ground exists is the sine qua non of Virtual political legitimacy in its current technocratic form.
In this light, Oster’s call for amnesty can present itself as an effort to rebuild the neutral space of shared political endeavour after a period of conflict. But it reads as a continuation of now-familiar efforts to weaponise the appearance of such neutrality and common purpose, in the interests of one side of that conflict.
We all knew every pandemic policy would come with trade-offs. The lawn-sign priesthood forbade any discussion of those trade-offs. I don’t blame the class that so piously dressed their own material interests as the common good, for wanting to dodge the baleful looks now coming their way. But no “amnesty” will be possible that doesn’t acknowledge the class politics, the corruption of scientific process, the self-dealing, and the self-righteousness that went to enforcing those grim years of lawn-sign tyranny.
Science, it turns out, is not always “real”. And nor, I suspect, will kindness now be everything.
Or to put it another way: No, There Will Not Be Any “Pandemic Amnesty.” “Nothing Forgotten. Nothing Forgiven.”
SPACE: Rocket Lab to attempt booster recovery on upcoming Electron launch. Rocket Lab is like SpaceX’s cute little brother — and that’s not at all a put-down, but high praise.
UNEXPECTEDLY! Right On Cue, Major Leftwing Pollsters Suddenly Credit the GOP with Having a Big Lead on the Democrats.
There is a very strong suspicion among poll analysts and critics. The People’s Pundit Richard Barris mentioned it in his last podcast, though he’s mentioned it before, and many people talk about it.
They talk about major pollsters deliberately publishing polls they know for a fact oversample Democrats and are therefore just wrong, in order to please their clients (who are often leftwing media companies and their gonzo shitlib audiences).
But then, right before the election, in the last poll before voting starts, they suddenly publish a poll showing the GOP in a much better position.
Suddenly, the Democrat oversampling they’ve been doing for months just poof! vanishes.
And why do they do this? Because, when people rank pollster’s accuracy, they usually only look at the last poll conducted before the election.
Still though, don’t get cocky. As Glenn likes to say, “Seriously, if you care about this election, you need to be out volunteering and donating. Commenting on the Internet doesn’t count.”
STACY MCCAIN: Democrats and Media (But I Repeat Myself) Begin Midterm Pre-Mortems.
When even CNN is forced to admit things look bad for Democrats, you know that things look very bad for Democrats. Yet nobody at CNN will admit that they are part of the problem. For most of the past year, CNN has led every hour, 24 hours a day, with breathless updates from Nancy Pelosi’s J6 witchhunt committee’s “investigation” of the January 2021 Capitol riot — “a threat to our democracy!” — as if nothing else in the world was nearly as newsworthy. Hyping up this “get Trump” narrative was part of a political propaganda operation intended to distract from the Biden administration’s multitudinous failures by making Donald Trump the Emmanuel Goldstein of the midterm campaign.
And guess what? Nobody fucking cares anymore.
Did any substantial number of people outside the DC media/political bubble ever really care about the J6 “investigation”? I don’t think so.
Gas prices are still at least 75% higher than when Biden was elected, prices for many other commodities are sky-high, there may be a shortage of home heating oil this winter, and the generally catastrophic effects of “Bidenflation” have completely overwhelmed every other issue that might have mattered. Given what an awful president Biden has been, a lot of voters are thinking the Capitol rioters had a point. If they had known he was going to be this bad, everybody else would have rioted, too.
Failure has consequences, and Democrats can’t escape the verdict that voters will deliver next Tuesday. So now the question is, who to blame?
Well, I have some thoughts, but read the whole thing.
CRYING FOWL: Government Warns Of Turkey Shortage Ahead Of Thanksgiving.
America is heading for a turkey shortage and elevated poultry prices as families prepare to gobble up the popular bird this Thanksgiving.
The price per pound for an eight-pound hen has increased from $1.15 last year to $1.47 this year, according to data from the Department of Agriculture, with residents of the northeastern United States preparing to pay the most on average. An outbreak of the avian flu has impacted flocks in 43 states and 304 counties, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Some of the turkeys that are being raised right now for Thanksgiving may not have the full amount of time to get to 20 pounds,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on a call with reporters, according to a report from Axios.
Soaring costs of living have impacted Americans attempting to celebrate Thanksgiving and other holidays over the past two years. The American Farm Bureau Federation announced last November that the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner had increased 14% from the previous year.
Supermarkets will be shifting a lot of “Christmas Dinner in a Can” this year.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! “We settle [our differences] peaceavely at the battle box.” Biden Ignores Issues People Care About in Primetime Speech, Focuses on January 6 and ‘Election Deniers.’
WHY WORKERS ARE FLEEING CHINA’S ‘IPHONE CITY:’
There is a video suggesting there were multiple deaths in a dormitory room at the Zhengzhou plant. The company denies any fatalities.
In any event, workers have had enough. “Foxconn really messed up, I don’t think a lot of people would want to go back,” said Dong Wanwan, a 20-year-old worker, who fled the Zhengzhou plant with her 19-year-old brother and walked 25 miles to get home. “I know I wouldn’t.”
Dong and her brother walked away—literally and figuratively—from one of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in China, and this suggests China’s strict worker controls are unsustainable. In May, Quanta Computer, which makes Apple’s MacBook, was hit by worker discontent due to another closed-loop system.
The disruption could not come at a worse time for Apple. The Zhengzhou factory, which employs about 200,000 people, would normally be operating at full-speed for the Christmas season. “A person with direct knowledge of the matter” told Reuters that the production of iPhones could fall “by as much as 30%” at the Zhengzhou plant. Foxconn says production there was, in the words of Reuters, “normal.”
“Normal”? In China, operating below capacity is now common. “COVID-control and other rules have for months crippled export-oriented factories in China,” says Jonathan Bass, a manufacturing expert at InfraGlobal Partners, to 1945. “American consumer electronic companies are critically reliant on subcontractors and assemblers in China and are now having major supply-chain problems in that country.”
* * * * * * * * *
Since the early months of the pandemic, the Party has made the number of China’s infections and deaths a measure of its effectiveness. Unrelenting propaganda maintains the line that Chinese communism is superior to American democracy because China has been better able to control the disease.
Therefore, every case of coronavirus in China is considered by the Communist Party as a threat to its rule. It does not matter whether disease-control measures make economic sense. This has become a matter of regime legitimacy.
The Party, at least up to now, has thought it could continue its oppressive system indefinitely, but the defiance of angry workers from Zhengzhou—and the broad support they received from society—show us the Chinese people have had enough.
The CCP’s obsession with the appearance of zero COVID isn’t just focused on the Foxconn plant, of course: Chinese ‘Zero-COVID’ Hell: The Bleakness in the East.
Earlier:
● October 26th: The end of Apple’s affair with China.
● September 5th: China’s Economy is Headed for One of the Largest Meltdowns Ever.
● July 6th: Business Exit from China Accelerating. “The exit from China makes sense for many businesses and will probably have positive geopolitical consequences as the U.S. becomes less dependent on production in a communist regime. But the fundamental transportation problems the U.S. faces will remain the same, and some might even get worse.”
● November 13th, 2019: How to Conduct Business with Chinese Companies That See a Dark Future.
WHITE HOUSE PREVIEWS BIDEN WITH TALK OF VIOLENCE-FANNING, ELECTION-DENYING GOP:
The White House said Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s speech about threats to democracy was important because of Republicans who won’t accept the results of next Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previewed Biden’s speech at the top of Tuesday’s White House briefing.
“Democracy is under assault and we cannot pretend otherwise… Mega MAGA Republican officials…don’t believe in the rule of law,” Jean-Pierre said. “They refuse to accept the results of elections and they fan the flames of political violence.”
Jean-Pierre told reporters “an alarming number of Republican officials suggesting they will not accept the results of this election … The president believes it is a moment of reckoning. This is not a regular moment in our democracy.”
She did not identify the Republican officials who said they will not accept the results of the election, in which the party is heavily favored.
“Denying the results of an election makes you a threat to our democracy,” she said.
It’s good to see her calling out Biden, Ron Klain and herself as threats to democracy — that takes some real bravery from a president’s press secretary:
UPDATE: Fox News is in rare agreement with KJP tonight!
OLD AND BUSTED: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
The New Hotness? If You Ask for Proof That a MAGA Ninja Didn’t Attack Paul Pelosi You Are a Conspiracy Theorist.
(Link safe; goes to Dana Loesch.)
UNION STATION IS THE PERFECT BACKDROP FOR BIDEN’S SPEECH:
Just seven years ago, I interned down the street from Union Station. At lunchtime, the travel hub was packed to the brim with local employees looking for a quick bite or a coffee. Shoppers trolled the mid- to high-end retail stores. The Metro, bus and train platforms bustled with commuters.
Now, Union is essentially a ghost town. Thanks to a combination of neglectful law enforcement and a refusal to relocate the homeless encampments, the station has been overrun with drug-addicted and mentally-ill vagrants. It’s nearly impossible to enter Union Station without being accosted by a crazy person or, at the very least, walking through a cloud with the rank odor of feces and urine. It’s not uncommon to see one of the “individuals experiencing homelessness” outside on the subway grates suffering a drug overdose, or to bristle past another shouting out a schizophrenic rant.
Most of the stores inside have closed, including Starbucks, which cited safety concerns and a lack of customers as the reason for its shutdown. When you’re unlucky enough to have to catch a train to New York, you keep your head down, hold your bag tightly, and speed walk straight to your platform. No sane person dares stop in the bathroom.
It was major news when a shooting occurred in the food court area at Union Station in 2015. Comparatively, a person was shot near the Shake Shack in late September of this year; another was shot in 2020 near the bus depot. Hardly anyone covered either shooting besides a few local news outlets. Why? Because it was no longer surprising.
And it’s only going to get worse: Washington D.C. to Legalize Public Urination. It’ll also cut “the maximum penalties for offenses such as burglaries, carjackings and robberies.”
AT AMAZON, Coleman Xtreme Portable Cooler | Hard Cooler Keeps Ice Up to 5 Days. Good for travel, or power outages. #CommissionEarned.
BIDEN: “WATCH ME.” Megyn Kelly: We have.
MARK JUDGE: The Stasi Media That White Knights for Nancy Pelosi Bought Every Wild Tale About Brett Kavanaugh.
The media is feverishly blasting the conspiracy theories that popped up after the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
They are right to do so. I’ve been fortunate enough in my career as a journalist to have great editors who warned me about jumping into a story too quickly when you don’t know the facts. Mr. Pelosi is an elderly man who was assaulted by a nutcase. There is nothing funny about that and it’s irresponsible to speculate. Across the board, the media condemned the wild speculation and partisan mania that surrounded the incident.
* * * * * * * *
I sure could have used some of that skepticism in 2018. In September of that year I got a call from Ronan Farrow from the New Yorker, called me and told me I was in a letter along with Brett, a letter that accused us of taking part in “sexual misconduct” in “the 1980s.” Farrow couldn’t tell me the specific time, the place, or even who the accuser was.
Related: Paul Pelosi and the violence we care about. “Media bias is apparent not only in the information and takes that the media publish but also in what the media decree to be important in the first place. And it would appear that the targeting of a right-wing, pro-life justice is less important – a lot less important – than the targeting of the home of a Democratic, pro-choice politician. Politics is clearly at play here. Kavanaugh’s moral outlook runs counter to that of the liberal media and coastal elites, and thus he makes for an unsympathetic character. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand – she’s the crusading Democrat the chattering classes love. An assault on her home moves the liberal elites profoundly.”
The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) held its Midwifery Works Conference last month, but the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) had no presence there for the first time in 6 years. AAPLOG, a non-sectarian organization, operated as a “special interest group” within the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) for 40 years before ACOG discontinued the designation. Now, ACNM, ACOG, and the organization responsible for certifying OB-GYNs, the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ABOG), have embraced pro-abortion stances.
“One of the greatest threats to maternal health care is the rabid pro-abortion activism currently being displayed by both ABOG and ACOG,” AAPLOG CEO Dr. Donna Harrison told The Daily Signal. “Three national studies have revealed that somewhere between 75% and 93% of OB-GYNs do not perform abortions in their practices.”
Harrison also raised the alarm about a July statement from ABOG, which she characterized as a threat to decertify pro-life OB-GYNs.
“Physicians and midwives who care for both of their patients, both the pregnant mother and the human being in her womb, are being systematically bullied and eliminated from being able to practice medicine, at a time when maternity care deserts are worsening around the country,” Harrison added. “ACNM has recently joined in the bullying by refusing to allow midwives who care for their in-utero patients to even speak or exhibit at the recent ACNM national conference.”
ACNM told AAPLOG in September that it could not participate in the midwifery conference, citing its official position that “Abortion Is Healthcare.”
“We are unable to accommodate as your mission doesn’t align with our position statement on abortion,” an ACNM staffer wrote to AAPLOG. “We affirm patient autonomy.”
It’s by PJM alumnus Tyler O’Neil, so read the whole thing.
GOOD: States Pulling Hundreds of Billions in Retirement Funds from ‘Woke Capitalist’ ESG Investment Management Firms. You don’t want your portfolio managers chasing peer approval instead of return on investment.
NEW YORK TIMES OWNER ACQUIRES TELEVISION NETWORK: Tom Cotton Owns CBS Mornings Anchor in Tense Exchange Over Paul Pelosi Attack. “In my opinion, Cotton is one of the more underrated Republicans when it comes to putting on master classes in how to destroy media narratives in real-time under the harsh glare of the spotlight without breaking a sweat. In this case, it’s especially important that Republicans get it right and not fall hook, line, and sinker into the traps the press and Democrats are setting as it relates to the Pelosi incident from last week.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Don’t forgive teachers unions, school leaders for failing to reopen schools during COVID.
BE PREPARED: Chef-Master 90235 Butane Countertop Range, Portable. #CommissionEarned