Archive for 2022
January 24, 2022
MELTDOWN: Biden Calls Fox Reporter a ‘Stupid Son of a B****.’ “Even though the press was leaving the room at the time, did he seriously think it was appropriate to say that about a reporter while talking directly into the microphone?”
Did he think about it at all, or was it one of those angry senescence outbursts?
YOU DON’T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO SEE WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS: Wow: Virginia senate Dem sides with Youngkin, GOP in pushing for end to school mask mandate.
ROGER KIMBALL: Of Cabals and Elections.
Joe’s numbers are in the tank.
Kamala’s are under the tank.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s are lost somewhere in an abandoned exploratory tunnel excavated by Elon Musk’s Boring Company.
Every psephologist in Alpha Centauri expects the Democrats to lose the House in a historic tsunami of red redress.
The Democrats will lose 40, 50, maybe 60 seats.
Some are predicting 70 seats will switch from blue to red in the House.
The Senate is more dicey, but more and more observers believe that the GOP will flip the Senate as well.
But remember the premise.
Elections are only legitimate if Democrats win.
The 2022 midterms are almost certain to be a rout for Democrats, especially in the House but also, if by a less dramatic margin, in the Senate and in many state elections.
Ergo, to the Democratic mouthpiece, the midterm elections will by definition be illegitimate.
To rubes like you and me, that seems preposterous.
We think that a free, open, and democratic election is one in which the election rules are known beforehand and everyone who is entitled to vote has an equal opportunity to do so.
That goes completely against the grain of the anti-democratic Democratic mindset.
One of the most remarkable essays about the 2020 election was “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,” published in Time magazine last February.
By “saved the election,” the author meant “saved the election for the Democrats.”
This is Time, so the anti-Trump animus is patent on every page.
What’s remarkable, though, is that the author cheerfully—almost gleefully—describes exactly how a cabal of anti-Trump operatives swung the election against Trump and then stymied his efforts to challenge the results.
“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes,” we read.
Isn’t that exactly what Trump partisans argued, much to the ridicule and contempt of their political opponents?
Yes, but it’s different when they do it.
They don’t engage in ridicule and contempt because what their opponents are saying is false. They engage in ridicule and contempt to shut their opponents up because it’s true.
SHOCKER: Road salt, electric vehicles, drugs, smartphones can all be affected by really cold temps.
And don’t forget the fluffy animals:
THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW: A neighbor’s noisy toilet is a human rights violation, Italy’s top court rules.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: US puts 8,500 troops on heightened alert amid Russia tension. “The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has put up to 8,500 troops on heightened alert, so they will be prepared to deploy if needed to reassure NATO allies in the face of ongoing Russian aggression on the border of Ukraine. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said no final decisions have been made on deployments. He said the order is about ensuring that the U.S. is ready to respond if NATO decides to deploy its response force.”
I DUNNO, IT POLICE-DEFUNDED ITS WAY INTO CHAOS AND VIOLENCE: Fagan: New York City Can’t Arrest Its Way Back to Safety.
Letting honest people carry guns would help too though, I admit.
SO CLASSES HAVE STARTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, with masking optional but “strongly recommended.” I’m not on campus today (I don’t teach on Mondays) but the reports are that hardly anyone among the students is masking.
FIRE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE NON-ESSENTIAL WORKERS: Standoff In Virginia As Schools Defy Governor’s Order Making Masks Optional.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Cruel ‘Bare Shelves Biden’ Policies Create Baby Formula Shortage.
TOP SELLER: TurboTax Premier 2021 Tax Software, Federal and State Tax Return with Federal E-file [Amazon Exclusive] [PC/Mac Disc]. #CommissionEarned
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: This Mom Is Helping Parents Discover Pro-America Content for Kids. “We don’t want to do anything that’s political. We merely want to present families and educators with resources that unite us as Americans, that provide the rightful telling of who we are as Americans.”
VANDERBILT BANS ITS STUDENTS FROM ATTENDING HOME BASKETBALL GAMES BUT NOT VISITING STUDENTS. The ban may end today. Ten years ago, we discovered Vanderbilt admins were nuts when they kicked more than a dozen Christian groups off campus for requiring the “wrong” beliefs about homosexuality. Looks like not much has changed.
HOW TO GET A LOST PHONE BACK TO ITS OWNER. “If the lost phone’s owner has saved emergency contact details in their device, you can access these friends from the lock screen. On an iOS device, swipe up from the bottom or press the Home button to open the passcode screen, tap the Emergency link in the lower-left corner, and choose Medical ID. If you’ve picked up an Android phone, swipe up from the bottom of the screen, tap Emergency call and then View emergency Information. If you see an emergency contact listed, get in touch with them to find out whose phone you’ve found. While you’re at it, you should probably add emergency contacts to your own phone’s lock screen—just in case.”
MAKE AMERICA DEPENDENT AGAIN: Thanks Biden! Guess Who We’re Buying More Oil From Now?
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Biden acts much more like Putin’s puppet than Trump ever did.
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Late-life exercise shows rejuvenating effects on cellular level. “For people who hate exercising, here comes some more bad news: it may also keep you younger. Not just looking younger, but actually younger, on an epigenetic level. By now, the benefits of exercise have been well established, including increased strength of bones and muscles, improved mobility and endurance, and lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. . . . A study recently published in Aging Cell, “Late-life exercise mitigates skeletal muscle epigenetic aging,” suggests this could be the case. The paper was written by a team of seven researchers across three institutions, including Kevin Murach, an assistant professor in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation at the U of A. Murach’s grant from the National Institute of Health funded the study, and he was one of three co-first authors.”
BUT DON’T TRY TO BEFRIEND ONE, IT DOESN’T END WELL: Hippos can recognize familiar voices, new study finds.
No, really, it doesn’t end well at all.
THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME: RFK Jr’s anti-vaxx rant: Hey, at least Anne Frank could hide from the Nazis.
At a rally against vaccine mandates in Washington, DC, on Sunday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likened vaccine policies in the US to the actions of a totalitarian state, even suggesting Anne Frank was in a better situation when she was hiding from the Nazis.
“Even in Hitler Germany (sic), you could, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did,” said Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, in a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. “I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.”
RFK Jr. is a descendent of a family that has been diminishing the horrors of National Socialists since about 1938 or so: Joseph Kennedy, American Fascist:
In this meticulous, relentless biography, Joseph P. Kennedy is now firmly established in the annals of twentieth-century fascism. When he arrived in England in early 1938, he quickly found a home among the ruling elite who believed, as Susan Ronald puts it, that “fascism was the cure for communism.” Notwithstanding FDR’s unprecedented provocation of sending an Irishman with no diplomatic skills to Great Britain, Kennedy immediately sided with Prime Minister Chamberlain and the appeasers, believing that any deal with Hitler—no matter how humiliating and lethal to the lives of millions—was preferable to war. Kennedy never stopped believing that Hitler could be bought off, that businessmen could do business with fascists.
But appeasement, in and of itself, is not, of course, a form of fascism. Even Neville Chamberlain eventually realized that Hitler’s cruel lust for power could not be satiated by offering so much of Europe to his suzerainty. FDR understood that Hitler could not be appeased and became increasingly wary of Kennedy, but kept him in England because the President felt the Ambassador’s defeatist attitudes would demoralize the American people and undermine democratic life. Kennedy, on his leaves home, lectured FDR and said “very frankly” that the United States “would have to come to some form of Fascism here.” He did not believe Great Britain could survive a war against the fascist powers and that America would become increasingly isolated and lose control of its markets if FDR’s government did not take over control of the economy to counter Hitler’s hegemony over his capitalists. Kennedy proposed that the President “organize a small powerful committee under himself as chairman and this committee would run the country without much reference to Congress.”
Kennedy thought solely in terms of economics. Although he said he cared about the fate of Jews and persecuted minorities, in the end he thought they would have to be sacrificed for the greater good of the United States and its allies. Like Hitler, Kennedy believed in a Jewish cabal, which had thwarted him and that was intent on instigating incidents that would draw America into a disastrous war. “To defeat fascism,” Kennedy argued in a memorandum, the United States would “have to adopt totalitarian methods” and strike deals with dictators.
When the war actually began, Kennedy remained defeatist, proclaiming to journalists, to his British colleagues, and to FDR himself that Great Britain was finished as a world power and that a German invasion of the UK would succeed. Even after the heroic RAF victories during the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, Kennedy predicted defeat. In short, he never acknowledged that the will, the spirit, or the values of the democracies would triumph in war. Democracy, he insisted, would be vanquished.
Like father, like sons: Did John F. Kennedy Admire Adolf Hitler?
John F. Kennedy admired Hitler as a young man and felt fascism was right for Germany, according to a new book in German that mines the future president’s diaries.
According to Spiegel Online’s article on the book, the 20-year-old Kennedy pondered on August 3, 1937: What are the evils of fascism compared to communism? On August 21 he added that the Germans had been ganged up on.
The book is “John F. Kennedy Unter Deutschen” (“John F. Kennedy Among the Germans”) – featuring travel diaries and letters between 1937 and 1945. The work, edited by Oliver Lubrich, documents three visits by Kennedy to Germany – in 1937, 1939 and 1945. “At first glance, one could get the impression that Kennedy endorsed fascism and even admired Hitler,” Spiegel writes.
Bobby Kennedy’s Fascist Moment: “If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all their youthful vision and vigor then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow.”
IMMUNE SYSTEM MODULATORS MODULATE THE IMMUNE SYSTEM. Arthritis drugs may reduce COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness. “Some arthritis drugs may reduce the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, according to the Arthritis Foundation, which also offers advice on booster shots. Research is limited, but evidence suggests that disease-modifying drugs used for arthritis may reduce the response of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, according to the foundation. . . . No research on the one shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in people taking immunosuppressive medications has been reported, according to the Arthritis Foundation.”
Plus: “Karp added that it’s still unclear how much protection a third or fourth booster provides to immunocompromised patients, such as those with cancer, organ transplants and those taking immunosuppressive medications.”
I have a friend with MS who had undetectable antibody levels despite having had covid and two shots. On the other hand, when she had covid, which predated the vaccinations, she didn’t get all that sick. That’s probably because immunity has more to do with T- and B-cell responses, which I suspect people study less because it’s harder than studying antibody levels.
PUTIN BUDDIES CONTRIBUTED TO SCHUMER: Wait, there must be some mistake, Chuck Ross of the Washington Free Beacon. Don’t you mean Putin’s buddies contributed to Trump? Surely the esteemed Senate Majority Leader would never accept funds from people connected to Russia’s strong man.