Archive for 2022
July 19, 2022
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: America’s Public Schools Are Breaking. The failings of our government school system were put on full display during COVID as schools shut down and the classroom moved to Zoom.
BE PREPARED: KIZEN Infrared Thermometer Gun. #CommissionEarned
BLUE STATE BLUES: Citadel Flees Illinois for the Sunshine State.
It’s a familiar story by now. Firms from San Francisco and New York have been steadily making the move south over the last two years. Blue states had imagined that they held businesses hostage, that these firms could simply not pick up and move. The pandemic proved them wrong. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted how red states have “won” the post-pandemic economy. “Remote work allowed many workers to move to red states, not because of political preferences, but for financial and lifestyle reasons—cheaper housing, better weather, less traffic and lower taxes, the analysts said.”
But those political preferences do matter. We don’t have the data to tell whether politics play a role in people making these moves, but it’s hard not to suspect that it figures into the equation. Normalcy during Covid was clearly a draw. Florida had famously reopened, under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, far earlier than any of the blue states. Much of life had returned to normal there, and companies followed their employees as they sought out that freedom. With this migration has come a serious shift in the state’s politics. Previously a purple state, Florida has moved solidly into the red column. In March, Fox News reported “registered Republican voters now outnumber Democrats by over 100,000 for the first time in the state’s history.”
Crime as a factor is also under-examined. It’s not that there is no crime in Florida in general, or in Miami specifically. Of course there is. But there is a seriousness to Florida’s response that simply doesn’t exist in Illinois, New York, or California. While Pritzker talks about fantasy proposals, which likely wouldn’t stop the Chicago bloodshed anyway, Governor DeSantis is focusing on crime-fighting, hiring away out-of-state officers, and raising police pay across the board.
Plus: “DeSantis, for all the 2024 speculation about his candidacy, is also not trotting around New Hampshire complimenting their root vegetables. He is laser-focused on making Florida better.”
IT ISN’T AN INSURRECTION WHEN THEY DO IT: Charges Dropped Against Colbert Staffers Who Illegally Entered Capitol Building.
WOKE IS A JOKE: I’m always shocked (well, not shocked but p**sed off) when giant mega-corps spend money conning people how “woke” they are instead of treating people equally and fairly. Today’s sh*t list includes Goldman Sachs (the “Giant Vampire Squid”) who talks the talk but can’t walk the walk.
Old pal and investigative reporter Susan Antilla shows how Goldman Sachs uses the arbitration system to keep heinous treatment away from public scrutiny:
Last spring, Goldman was pushed by shareholders to investigate its arbitration policy and determine how its use of a private justice system impacted employees. In December, Goldman reported that while there had been concerns that arbitration may “allow harassment and discrimination to go unseen and unaddressed,” its review found that those concerns simply didn’t apply to Goldman. The law firm that represented Jeffrey Epstein and Roman Polanski in their sexual assault cases conducted the investigation, assisted by a scholar who is on the panels of two arbitration providers.
Nice company you keep there, Goldman.
TOP SELLER: THISWORX Car Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
YOU DON’T SAY: Former Treasury Secretary Says Fed ‘Lost Its Way’ Focusing on Social Justice Instead of Inflation.
Larry Summers, who served as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, has said the Federal Reserve failed to anticipate current inflation levels and that price increases can only be arrested by “dislocation” of the economy.
“Frankly, I think in 2021, our central bank lost its way,” Summers said in a July 15 interview with Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” adding that central bankers were more concerned about the environment and social justice than about inflation, which they “confidently dismissed” as transitory.
“Our central bank let us down quite badly, and as a consequence, they find themselves in a very, very difficult position, not least because they don’t have the credibility that they once enjoyed, given their repeated poor forecasting record,” Summers said.
The Fed is hardly alone among our institutions that sold their credibility cheap.
MAKE FUNEMPLOYMENT GREAT AGAIN! New York Times Magazine Interview Whines Over America’s ‘Rabid’ ‘Obsession’ with Economic Growth.
(Classical reference in headline.)
SPYING ON AMERICANS: New Documents Reveal Huge Scale of Government Cellphone Tracking of Citizens. “By purchasing this data from data brokers, officials are sidestepping the legal process government officials would typically need to go through in order to access cell phone data.”
OLD AND BUSTED: “Let’s Go Brandon!”
The new hotness? “When in Delaware, don’t miss a visit to historic Brandon Falls:” The Internet Trolls Biden By Marking Spot Where He Fell Off Bike On Google Maps.
ABOLISH EVERYTHING: “Joe Biden Urged to Abolish ICE as Agency Reportedly Runs Out of Money.”
(FWIW, when I toured immigration detention facilities a few years ago they turned out to be much nicer than I had been led to believe.)
SKYNET SMILES, WAGS ITS TAIL: Robot dog learns to walk in one hour.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Biden Went to Saudi Arabia to Mend Fences With the Nation, Which He Once Vowed to Make “Pariahs.” He Finished By Calling Them Liars.
WITH NOTES FROM OUR OWN PAULA BOLYARD: Read the Full 77-Page Uvalde School Shooting Preliminary Report Here.
WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS? How the Left Hopes to Seize Control of Local Election Offices.
Two big money liberal operations, ready to spend $80 million each, are trying to determine who controls elections and how in the years ahead.
“The overall objective of the political left is to change the way you conduct overall elections,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, which advocates clean elections, told The Daily Signal.
One of the two liberal groups, Run for Something, is a political action committee founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer. In the spring, Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders, and other local officials charged with running elections.
The PAC says it will promote thousands of election administrators in the years ahead. But for 2022, it reports endorsing 11 candidates competing in races in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Local election clerks generally are empowered to interpret and enforce state election regulations. They often have discretion on matters such as whether to count absentee ballots that come in after Election Day, how strictly to enforce voter ID or signature-matching requirements, and how closely poll watchers may monitor the ballot counting on Election Day.
Where is the Right on this?