Archive for 2022
February 23, 2022
HELPFUL BOOK: 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation. #CommissionEarned
TRUE. BUT IT IS A NUCLEAR-ARMED GAS STATION: Harvard economist and former Obama adviser says Russia is ‘basically a big gas station’ and is otherwise ‘incredibly unimportant’ in the global economy.
Buc-ee’s doesn’t even have nukes.
ROGER SIMON: The Ukraine Crisis Is On Biden.
Does anyone seriously believe that if Donald Trump were still sitting in the Oval Office, as perhaps he should be, Ukraine would be in the jeopardy that it is?
The Ukraine crisis is on Joseph Biden. And I’m not just talking about how he treated that country as his family’s piggy bank, with his son making a fortune off their energy giant Burisma while Joe himself threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor investigating the famously corrupt company.
Unscrupulous and immoral as that was, I’m talking about something even worse. I’m talking about how he made Ukraine a gift to Vladimir Putin.
On Jan. 20, 2020, Biden canceled presidential approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. That was followed by a slew of other actions on energy, eliminating the United States’ newly won energy independence and ability to export its surplus.
With all this, Vladimir might have fainted, if he ever does such a thing, at his good fortune.
It meant Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, as well as many other countries, would be more dependent on Mother Russia for warmth the coming winter (and many more) via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Biden is now suddenly threatening to cut off that pipeline should Russia invade Ukraine. It’s unclear how he would do it. How long such a threat would last in the cold of a European winter isn’t hard to guess.
Whether his energy policies are the most destructive of his administration is moot. There are so many.
But it does rival the chaotic departure from Afghanistan that left behind billions in modern armaments for the Taliban, an intact Bagram Air Base with one of the longest military runways in the world as easy pickings for the Chinese (their nuclear development facility a mere hour away), plus untold thousands of our citizens and allies stranded in that most primitive of locations, and the women in the hands of some of the most misogynistic people on Earth.
As for Keystone XL, Biden backed up his ruling by similarly withdrawing presidential support this January for the Greek–Israeli pipeline. It would have helped fuel Europe while simultaneously aiding the economy of two supposed U.S. allies. (Let’s not even go into what kind of ally Biden really is to Israel, given his evident desperation to rejoin a renewed Iran nuclear deal. The only thing that may be saving him is the Iranians themselves seem to be uninterested in any kind of deal, just in stalling.)
Biden claimed to be ending support for both pipelines for environmental reasons. Does he really believe that?
Flashbacks:
● Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?
● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.
● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”
Exit quote: “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”
In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden: As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
So is it fair to ask if Biden is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.
“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”
Related: Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.
Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada says freedom is not unlimited and the Ottawa trucker convoy showed an ‘ugly side of freedom.’
You went full Ingsoc, Globe and Mail. Never go full Ingsoc.
(Link safe; goes to the Blaze.)
LEFTISM ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO TELLING PEOPLE WHO GETS TO HAVE WHAT: Democrat Congressman Suggests the Redistribution of Trucks.
ANN ALTHOUSE TAKES CHRIS CILIZZA TO THE WOODSHED OVER HIS RESPONSE TO OBAMA’S “THE 1980S CALLED” REMARK:
Obama’s joke — “the 1980s are now calling…” — overshadowed Romney’s statement, which was: “Russia is not a friendly character on the world stage. And for this President to be looking for greater flexibility, where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia, is very, very troubling, very alarming.”
Now, Cillizza says: “What looked like a major flub during the 2012 campaign — and was used as a political cudgel by Obama — now looks very, very different. It should serve as a reminder that history is not written in the moment — and that what something looks like in that moment is not a guarantee of what it will always look like.”
How about telling us what you actually said at the time? Because you, Chris Cillizza, were part of the “political cudgel” that — passive voice — “was used.” You had the ability at the time to be more than semi-conscious, and as a writer at The Washington Post, you had a responsibility to do more than cheer-lead for Obama, something more than glance “in the moment” and say “what something looks like.”
It was time at the time to say who was right and wrong! And here’s what you said at the time:
Oh, the superciliousness of “methinks”! It looks so awful now — that supercillizziousness…
Well, Cilizza’s job — certainly as he sees it — isn’t to tell us the truth, but to promote and protect Democrats. When the election is ten years past, he’s allowed to tell a bit of truth, but that won’t change how he reacts to the next dumb statement by a Democrat in an election year. He’s a Democratic operative with a byline, and that’s even how he sees himself when it comes down to it.
POCKET CHANGE: FCC goes easy on a robocaller by proposing slap-on-the-wrist fine of $45 million.
I’d modestly propose a slightly different tack for putting a stop to robocalls: A modest fine — maybe just $5 — slapped on the telecoms for each fraudulent call they let pass through their networks.
WELL, YES, BUT TO BE FAIR, SO IS HE: Biden Spent Years Talking About Russia. His Comments Are Aging Poorly.
Related: “Trump’s point isn’t that he likes Putin, but that Biden cannot handle the job, and that’s sad.” Also true.
THE RULING CLASS MAKES CLEAR ITS FEAR AND HATRED OF THE WORKING CLASS: National Guard to be deployed to DC ahead of trucker protest.
YOU F*CKED UP, YOU TRUSTED US! Ukraine: You promised to protect us if we gave up our nukes.
WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE?
John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, 1859: “Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.”
The FBI, on Twitter, 2022:
For those who might say “oh, this is only about foreigners,” that doesn’t matter — if the “foreigners” are right about the electoral system being compromised, they’re doing us a favor by telling us so, even if it’s for their own selfish reasons.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Canada’s Commie Fascist Ways Warm the Hearts of American Democrats. “The disturbing fascist spectacle to the north of us is moving in a direction that should soon make it seem as if we’re living next to North Korea with hockey. Plant-based Canadian dictator Justin Trudeau is doing the cliché tyrant thing now and working hard to make a temporary power grab permanent. Because the people of Canada — truckers excluded — are weak and really want to be under the boot of an authoritarian government, it’s working.”
WITH UTMOST CARE, ONE WOULD HOPE: How NASA plans to take the International Space Station out of orbit. “In the planned, controlled, de-orbit operation for the ISS, newly built modules will first detach from the main structure and remain in orbit to eventually recombine as parts of future space stations.”
Now that’s a recycling program I can get behind.
BURIED LEDE: VLADIMIR PUTIN INVENTS TIME TRAVEL!
WELL, IT’S DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN SO SOMEBODY ELSE PROBABLY ACTUALLY SAID IT: Liberal Media Scream: Historian equates GOP vote reform to Lincoln’s assassin. “On CNN to plug her Presidents Day book on Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin Sunday showed again how unhinged liberals are on the matter of ballot reform, even proposals advanced by Republican governors and legislatures to make it easier to vote than in President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. Goodwin made the connection by suggesting that the last speech Booth heard from Lincoln, a Republican, was one calling for giving blacks the right to vote.”
SEPARATING SCHOOL AND STATE: Brad Thompson: How the Redneck Intellectual Discovered Educational Freedom—and How You Can, Too.
JOHN OLIVER’S ATTEMPT TO SMEAR A CRITICAL RACE THEORY CRITIC BACKFIRES SPECTACULARLY:
Oliver complained that the concerns about critical race theory is nothing more than “noise,” before showing parents who have spoken up at school board meetings over the past year to demand that this curriculum be removed from classrooms.
A thread from Andrew Follett goes into even more detail. Oliver’s claims about Loudon County, Virg. schools are entirely wrong. He lashes out at parents who spoke up for this kids, forgetting entirely that this is the school district that covered up the rape of a girl in a bathroom, as well as where the school board made an “enemies list” of parents.
Was it over when Loudoun County bombed Pearl Harbor?
Rufo responds here: Christopher Rufo responds to John Oliver’s rant about the anti-critical race theory movement.
They’re the Dems’ palace guard, replacing actual humor with “clapter” for their trained seal-like hard left studio audiences.
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Are You a Commie Pinko? Take the Quiz!
RETURN TO NORMALCY AND DECENCY: ‘Weed Slut 420’ Dishes Dirt on Hunter Biden to Grand Jury.
Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriend, who uses the online handle “weed slut 420,” told a grand jury investigating Biden that the president’s son dumped her after she told him to quit drugs, the New York Post reported.
Zoe Kestan, 28, on Feb. 15 told the jury that she and Biden, 52, shacked up at ritzy hotels in Manhattan and Hollywood. One of the hotels, Los Angeles’s Chateau Marmont, is where Biden “learned how to cook crack,” according to his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things.
Kestan said Biden told her to withdraw “thousands of dollars at a time,” although she had no idea how he had obtained the money.
Biden revealed in December that federal prosecutors in Delaware were “investigating [his] tax affairs.” Those tax affairs include Biden’s shadowy business dealings in China and Ukraine.
Kestan was not the first of Biden’s ex-lovers to have testified. The Daily Mail reported that former Washington, D.C., stripper Lunden Roberts, a.k.a. “Dallas,” also took the stand last week. Biden and Roberts have one child, a three-year-old daughter, whom Biden refused to acknowledge until a DNA test determined his paternity.
As of December, President Joe Biden still refused to acknowledge the daughter as his seventh grandchild.
Sheesh.
BE PREPARED: Augason Farms 30-Day 1-Person Emergency Food Supply. #CommissionEarned
RICH LOWRY: BLM’s disasters leave Democrats vulnerable. “If a right-wing purveyor of Internet misinformation wanted to discredit BLM and its allies, he couldn’t do much better than concoct a story in which a disturbed activist attempts to shoot and kill a local politician and immediately gets bailed out by his BLM brethren spouting clichéd attacks on the criminal-justice system. It’s what happened in Louisville, Ky., though. After 21-year-old Quintez Brown allegedly shot at — and missed — mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg, the city’s BLM chapter quickly posted his $100,000 bail. From attempted murder to walking free a couple of days later is quite the turnaround…Democrats wonder how they can blunt GOP attacks on culture issues and believe that if they explain their positions better, they’ll be fine. But the party is positioned so far left that it needs bold gestures. If it wanted to send an unmistakable signal of change, it would denounce the leadership of BLM, call for investigations into its finances, declare that the group’s priorities aren’t those of the Democratic Party and wear the ensuing furor from the left as a badge of honor. But Democrats won’t do that and can’t do that — which is why they are in such trouble.”