Archive for 2022
October 17, 2022
REGIME MEDIA PROTECTS THE REGIME: Reuters Rushes in to Protect Government, Informing Us Nobody Promised Vaccines Would Prevent Spread of COVID. “The news outlet performs a staggering. revisionist history fact-check to tell us that it was all our own fault for believing the vaccines would save us from infection. We somehow came up with this conclusion on our own because, according to the news syndicate, nobody promised us the vaccines would work. Imagine everyone’s surprise.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (RUSSIA EDITION): Russian Draftees Open Fire at Training Ground, Killing 11 and Wounding 15.
CHANGE? Nike co-founder Phil Knight declares war on Democrats in Oregon. “Knight has invested millions into Democrat Tina Kotek’s opponents, and polls show a Republican lead.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Biden Grabs an Ice Cream to Distract From Inflation. “If you happened to have recently experienced a certain amount of internal bleeding whilst worrying about the state of your personal finances and the economy overall, you should know that Joe Biden thinks you’re an idiot.”
“WHITE SUPREMACY.” Is there anything it can’t do?
The vast majority of journalists are white people, who need the “white supremacy” trope to establish their superiority over other white people.
WHEN CBS SAYS IT’S HAPPENING, IT’S HAPPENING: Dem momentum stalls, bleeding independents over economy. “Two-thirds of voters report seeing gas prices go up. That isn’t helping Democrats: those who report increases are more apt to blame Democratic policies for it.”
HMM: China’s economy is ‘in deep trouble’ as Xi heads for next decade in power.
As Xi prepares for his second decade in power, he faces mounting economic challenges, including an unhappy middle-class. If he is not able to bring the economy back on track, China faces slowing innovation and productivity, along with rising social discontent.
“For 30 years, China was on a path that gave people great hope,” said Doug Guthrie, the director of China Initiatives at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, adding that the country is “in deep trouble right now.”
While Xi is one of the most powerful leaders China and its ruling Communist Party have seen, some experts say that he can’t claim credit for the country’s astonishing progress.
“Xi’s leadership is not causal for China’s economic rise,” said Sonja Opper, a professor at Bocconi University in Italy who studies China’s economy. “Xi was able to capitalize on an ongoing entrepreneurial movement and rapid development of a private [sector] economy prior leaders had unleashed,” she added.
Rather, in recent years, Xi’s policies have caused some massive headaches in China.
The danger of one man rule is that there’s only one man to blame — and no nice way to make him go away.
IF YOU’LL BE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IN NOVEMBER: On November 15th, Wilfred “Bill” McClay is coming to the University of San Diego to deliver the annual Joan E. Bowes Lecture. Bill is the author of a splendid history of the United States—Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. If your children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, or teens hanging out on the street corner near you are being taught in school that our country is the Great Satan, this might be a good book for them. It’s make the effort to be fair; it’s not a fairy tale. But the truth is epic.
Bill will be speaking at USD on “Freedom of Speech versus Freedom of Expression.” The lecture is free, but registration is required. There will be a reception, so you’ll get a chance to speak with Bill.
This is our annual lecture by a conservative speaker … an official moment of sanity at an otherwise woke university.
BERKELEY’S FREE-SPEECH DECLINE: More On The Free Speech Scandal At UC-Berkeley Law School. “The sweeping prohibition — enacted by the Muslim Student Association, Queer Caucus at Berkeley, Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent, and others — violates the basic values of free speech and open inquiry, which lie at the heart of law practice and legal education.”
THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY TOOLS AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG: Mark Judge: The media dismissed Hunter Biden — while turning my life upside down.
Eager, willing tools.
DEAL OF THE DAY: DEWALT 20V MAX XR Battery. #CommissionEarned
NO. Did Saudi Arabia Just Hand the Midterms to the GOP?
Biden had hoped for cooperation from Riyadh to help starve Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war machine, which is largely funded by hydrocarbon sales, and further hinder his invasion of Ukraine (Russia’s deputy prime minister, who is under U.S. sanctions, was present at the OPEC+ meeting in Vienna). And of course, Biden wanted gas prices to be going down, not up, in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.
The insult to Biden came just a few months after the president visited Saudi Arabia and exchanged an infamous fist bump with Crown Prince (and newly appointed prime minister) Mohammed bin Salman. That gesture of friendship with a brutal tyrant was readily interpreted as a nasty bit of realpolitik, with Biden bowing to the fact that he needed Saudi Arabia to keep the oil flowing to keep both inflation and Russia in check. On that visit, Biden secured an understanding from Saudi Arabia and its junior partner, the UAE, to increase production by a total of about 1.25 million barrels per day. The Saudis did ramp up production during the summer, when oil was over $120 a barrel, but backed off as prices began to fall again.
Biden ended American energy independence, called Saudi Arabia a pariah state, and then expected them to bail him out.
“Blame it on the Saudis” is nothing more than obvious post-election battlespace prep to discredit a GOP victory.
The left can’t blame the Russians this time, so the Saudis will have to do.
EVERY WEEK I RUN A PROMO POST (MOSTLY FOR INDIE AUTHORS) AND VIGNETTE CHALLENGE ON MY BLOG: Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
This week it was even on Sunday as it’s supposed to be.
NOT SO MUCH A FIGHTER AS A MISSILE TRUCK: An Air Force F-22 Raptor just fired off a record number of air-to-air missiles. “The U.S. Air Force found out that the F-22 Raptor can fire far more air-to-air missiles than ever before. Teams from the 94th Fighter Squadron and 94th Fighter Generation Squadrons were able to load and fire a record breaking 28 missiles during a weapons test in September, far more than the standard arms loadout. That’s a lot of explosives. In fact, it’s nearly a third more than the previous record of 22 air-to-air missiles fired from a F-22, set in 2014 by a team from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. This Raptor is loaded for bear and other planes.”
DON’T GET COCKY: Latest Battleground Poll Shows Things Getting Worse for Democrats.
We can learn a couple things from all this.
The first is the brittle, arrogant and defensive response of our ruling class to any kind of political opposition nowadays. What kind of mind turns parents complaining at a school-board meeting into some sort of “domestic terrorism” threat? (The same kind that turns peacefully protesting truckers into “insurrectionists,” I suppose.)
In what previous age of American history would secret targeting and federal investigations of people engaging in a bedrock institution of participatory democracy have been seen as appropriate? Who calls people racist for wanting their kids to learn?
In this age, alas, those things happen, and the people doing them — the people who are supposed to be our society’s leaders, the best and the brightest, the level-headed non-extremists of the establishment — are frankly more than a little bit crazy.
No sane person would respond this way, and yet respond this way they do, over and over again. (And every time they do, they label their opponents racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, etc., wielding those adjectives like magic curse words, even though they’re pretty much always bogus.)
But here’s the other lesson: It doesn’t work.
Plus: “The truth is, people want sensible government by sensible people who listen to their constituents. That’s not rocket science, but it seems to be a stretch for today’s Democrats. May the defeats continue until they learn.”
AUTISTIC TEEN DOESN’T WANT TO FREEZE: Greta Thunberg Fractures German Greens with Her Call to Continue Operation of Hated Nuclear Power Plants.
She fractured them between stupid and slightly more stupid.