AFTER SANCTIONS THEY PROBABLY CAN’T AFFORD IT ANYWAY: Russia will END cooperation on the International space station and will NOT work with Nasa or European Space Agency. “The chief of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, revealed the move on Twitter and said he will submit a timetable for completion of current projects to the Kremlin. . . . Rogozin previously said ‘who would save the ISS?’ if Russia were to withdraw from the project. It prompted US billionaire Elon Musk to reply: ‘SpaceX’ – the name of his private space company. When a Twitter user asked the Tesla founder if this meant SpaceX would keep the ISS from falling onto Earth, Musk simply replied: ‘Yes.’ “
Archive for 2022
April 2, 2022
DISPATCHES FROM THE HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS: ‘That’s like saying black people like chicken:’ Whoopi Goldberg claims that calling out Hollywood for being full of out-of-touch elites is akin to racism as she defends A-lister who clapped Will Smith.
Maybe get World War II and the moon landings sorted out Whoopi, before defending modern-day Hollywood.
WEIRD THAT ALL THE GAY/TRANS/PEDO STUFF ISN’T WINNING OVER THIS DEMOGRAPHIC: Shock: Black people abandoning Biden. I mean, who could have seen that coming?
SARAH PALIN AMONG 50 CANDIDATES RUNNING TO FILL REMAINDER OF DON YOUNG’S TERM IN US HOUSE:
Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin entered the race late Friday afternoon to fill the remaining months of Congressman Don Young’s term.
“As I’ve watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight,” Palin said in an emailed news release.
Palin joins more than 50 other people who have filed to represent Alaska in the U.S House of Representatives.
The left’s many attempts to destroy Palin were key mile markers on the road to Trump. It would be fun to watch her respond to interviewers as a sitting congresswoman.
THE GHOST OF MILTON FRIEDMAN IS HAUNTING PRESIDENT BIDEN:
Friedman’s view used to be somewhat crudely summarized as saying that inflation comes from “too much money chasing too few goods” and that neatly captures the situation here. The inflation that is damaging the Biden administration so badly, to say nothing of the finances of ordinary Americans, is playing out just like Friedman would have predicted. When it comes to monetary economics, Friedman certainly is still running the show.
Related: Blame Insane Government Spending for Inflation.
Many people still blame today’s inflation on snags in globe-spanning supply chains. The chief proposed solution is to dismantle decades of globalization and bring production home. Some are also pushing for measures to offset inflation, including robust child subsidies and tax rebates for gas and food.
These proposals are rooted in a misunderstanding of the true cause of inflation: namely, government-induced demand. More spending, therefore, will only fuel the inflation fires.
Over the course of the pandemic, the Treasury Department issued roughly $6 trillion, $2.7 trillion of which was monetized by the Federal Reserve. Americans were sent $5.1 trillion through various programs, including individual checks and unemployment bonuses. Overall federal debt has since risen by about $6 trillion.
This response assumes the 2020 recession was sparked by a demand shock leading to a fall in aggregate demand, rather than the strangling of aggregate supply caused by the pandemic and lockdowns. Under these circumstances, sending people and companies money was never likely to impact output. Instead, it greatly inflated demand for the durable goods still being produced.
Even by the Keynesian economic standards that prompt this sort of fiscal response, COVID-19 relief was larger than any “output gap”—the difference between what the economy is producing and the most it could produce. In March 2020, the gap was $2.3 trillion, and that year alone, the government spent $3 trillion through several relief bills.
More: Biden Is Clueless About Inflation. New video from Reason TV, though the title is two words too long:
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: Don’t pretend that high prices and American suffering are a ‘bug’ for the establishment — it’s a historic feature.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Carhartt Men’s Loose Fit Heavyweight Short-Sleeve Pocket T-Shirt. #CommissionEarned
RETURN OF THE THIRD HORSEMAN. “Roughly three weeks ago the Russian army poured across Russia’s western frontier into Ukraine. As viewed from an agricultural point of view, the world’s largest wheat exporter invaded the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter. That alone condemns the Middle East to its most volatile and violent period in at least the last century. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the story.”
OKAY, GROOMERS: Leaked documents show how teachers recruit students, form gay and transgender clubs in schools.
Via Ace of Spades, who writes, “The left went hard after the Catholic Church while being nearly silent about the massive levels of child sexual abuse committed by teachers because the Catholic Church is a political enemy whereas government school teachers are political allies — they’re the very core of the Democrat army, in fact. But in fact: Teachers abuse far more children that Catholic priests ever had.”
UNCOVER THE DEPTH, SCRATCH THE SURFACE, WHATEVER: Hunter Biden Laptop Revelations Uncover Depth of Elite Institutional Corruption.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Andrew Sullivan Says He Was ‘Ambushed’ by ‘Unprofessional’ Jon Stewart in Interview: ‘Foul Race Essentialism.’
The show went predictably sideways after Sullivan made the obvious point that he is not responsible for bad stuff other White people do, especially those who were alive before he was born:
BOND: You know, because quite honestly if White men were going to do something about racism, you had 400 years. You coulda done it.
SULLIVAN: I am 58 years old.
BOND: I’m shutting you down right now.
SULLIVAN: I am not responsible for anyone before me.
BOND: The point is I am so tired of just engaging in this conversation and this deep hurt that Andrew has about talking about racism…. All of us White people do this.
Bond also said she wasn’t there to “argue with another White man.”
Stewart sided with Bond and said Sullivan was “doing a pretty good job” of at least appearing to be racist.
In a Substack post published Friday, Sullivan said he’d been “ambushed” because a booker for The Problem with Jon Stewart told him he’d be the only person on the show. He also reiterated his position on show’s subject matter.
Sullivan stated a booker called him to ask if he wanted to appear on the show to talk about race:
“Why would I go on a show just to be called a racist?” “No, no, no,” she replied. “Nothing like that would happen. This is not a debate. It’s just you talking one-on-one with Jon, and he’d never do that.” I said I’d think about it — especially since they seemed desperate with just 24 hours till taping — and later I called to say sure, if it’s just Jon. “I trust him to be fair.” I hadn’t had time to read the email invites, so I trusted the booker’s word.
Why on earth would anyone do that, given Stewart’s long track record of manipulating guests? Particularly conservative guests — which Sullivan still purports to be. In 2020, Deadline reported that “Jon Stewart Says His Biggest ‘Daily Show’ Regret Is Legacy Of ‘Evisceration Expectation.’” And yet here he is, back in full-on “Jon Stewart destroys Andrew Sullivan!!” mode.
Incidentally, Sullivan’s Substack briefly linked to above by Mediaite, is well worth a read in its entirety: The Problem With Jon Stewart. How painfully, cringingly super-woke must a comedian get to stay relevant?
When I tried to explain that I immigrated in 1984, and that a white man in 2022 cannot possibly be held responsible for something that happened four centuries ago, [Bond] replied: “I’m going to shut you down.” Stewart was enthralled. Then she spelled out exactly what she meant:
All white people do this. I don’t care if we say we’re Abolitionists, I don’t care if we say we’re Progressive, I don’t care if we are literally members of the KKK. Every single white person upholds these systems and structures of white supremacy, and we have got to talk about it.
This is the poisonous heart of CRT: that white people, by virtue of merely existing, are all morally problematic and always will be. Even if all the systems have been repealed. Even if you’d never racially discriminate yourself. Even if you spent your life fighting racism. That is why Bond called the Abolitionist movement indistinguishable in terms of its racism from the KKK! Why? Because whites are only ever whites.
Absorb that for a moment. This foul race essentialism, this view of white Americans as a single, undifferentiated blob of hate existing through the centuries as a force for the oppression of non-whites is simply the inverse of the old racism. It’s replacing hatred of blacks with hatred of whites; it’s replacing discrimination against blacks with discrimination against whites and Asians and others. It’s being used to make even more money for rich white people, to provide some elite whites with a weapon to destroy their career rivals, and to help build a new racial spoils system that leaves any notion of colorblindness or individual rights behind. (And the bigotry is palpable. When I spoke of the need to help a generation hobbled by absent fathers, high crime, and deep poverty, Lisa Bond responded: “Like you care about black kids.” There is no ad hominem these fanatics won’t stoop to.)
Is that a way out of where we are? Or is it, in fact, a fast way back to where we started?
One more thing: the trope of a malign racial force existing through history across time and space is one Jon Stewart might have once recognized before he joined the woke cult. I wonder what he would have said if someone had come on his old show and said, “I did not come on this show to argue with a Jew,” or “every single Jew upholds these systems,” or it doesn’t matter what a Jew’s politics are, he’s still a Jew, and therefore a racist. What if she had bragged that her organization wouldn’t even engage with Jews because they were so toxic. And what if that person had looked straight at a Jewish guest of Stewart’s when she said it? What would he have said?
Somehow I don’t think it would be: “If I could finger snap, I would finger snap right now.”
It’s been quite a ride for a man who was telling his Daily Show viewers in 2010 that their “race card was maxed out.” Or as Sullivan asked his fellow leftists last year: What Happened To You?
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Biden Runs Out of Gas.
“This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply into production,” President Biden said during his announcement Thursday that he would release more barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve than at any point in American history. His decision was also a concession. None of the policies Biden has enacted throughout his short presidency have alleviated the problems they were meant to solve. Quite the opposite: In practically every case, Biden has made things worse.
Energy? Killing the Keystone pipeline was one of the first things Biden did when he took office. In February, Biden delayed approval of new oil and gas leases. He continues to blame the increase in gas prices on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, even though prices began to rise early in Biden’s term. Biden scapegoats oil companies for sitting on profits, while he could be doing everything in his power to ramp up domestic production of available fuel sources—including nuclear.
Perhaps the Administration intends the natural and foreseeable consequences of its actions.
April 1, 2022
OPEN THREAD: Put me in a trance.
BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Greta Thunberg to publish ‘The Climate Book’ in October.
IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY, that InstaPundit appeared as AOL/InstaPundit.com, and The Register reported the takeover. Pretty much the only serious April Fool joke done on this blog. Nowadays the actual news is crazy enough to make the idea of an April Fool pointless.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, PEOPLE WHO INSIST ON BEING CALLED “DOCTOR” HAVE LAME DOCTORATES ANYWAY: This lady DEMANDS you call her “doctor” and yeah, she’s getting trolled beyond belief right now.
WHY DOES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WANT PEOPLE TO DIE? EPA sides with Trump admin to not regulate perchlorate in drinking water.
Or alternatively, why were we told the Trump Administration wanted people to die when it was supporting this same policy?
Related (From Ed): As James Lileks wrote in 2003, “For all these accusations to work, you have to believe that Republicans want poisoned water. You have to believe they drink different water than everyone else. And, of course, they do:”
Doubt it? Switch parties. Join the GOP, and see what happens: cheerful clean-cut uniformed men show up the next day, and take you off the city water lines. They’ll connect you to the special Republican water system that crosses the nation, supplying pure clean perfect water to GOP households. You can get it without Fluoride, too, as a sop to the Birchers and Goldie holdovers.
And there’s more! They’ll also install special GOP “screens” for your windows — they’ll trap airborne pollutants as small as three molecule across. You’ll also have access to rich, satisfying Republican sunshine, which tans you twice as fast — just look at Bob Dole! — and you’ll enjoy even-tempered Republican weather all year long. This is why Republicans don’t care about pollution, or bad water, or the ozone layer, or global warming: for all practical purposes, they’re not living on the same planet as the rest of the people, so they don’t care at all what happens to you.
True! All true! Invite a Republican over and hand him a glass of water. Watch him avoid drinking it — sometimes they spill it, sometimes they just say “I had water earlier today, thanks anyway” — and sometimes they sneak a little sponge out of their cuff, put it in their mouth and pretend to drink. Oh, they’re clever.
Well, if this isn’t true, then perhaps . . . maybe . . . there’s another side to this arsenic debate. Is it possible? Could it be?
Nahh, that’s crazy talk.
LEFTISTS HATE IT WHEN THEIR OPPONENTS ACT LIKE LEFTISTS: Battenfeld: Michelle Wu accuses critics of ‘harassment’ in feud with North End restaurant owners.
After closing off a press conference to some North End restaurant owners, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is escalating her feud with critics on social media — accusing them of harassing and bullying tactics.
“Let’s be clear. We will not normalize harassment as acceptable behavior,” Wu wrote on Twitter this week. “When members of this (restaurant) group have taken part in the yelling outside my house, bullied City staff & fellow restaurant owners — there is no right to get inside & shout down a press conference, too.”
When a critic responded, “Let’s be clearer; you work for them,” Wu shot back:
“I don’t actually. I work for the residents of Boston.”
Wu’s tactic of engaging her critics on social media while trying to avoid them in person comes as she offered a compromise to solve the controversy over her new policy of charging North End restaurants a $7,500 fee to operate outdoors.
The city of Boston offered restaurants “hardship exemptions” to the fee — which Wu introduced at a press conference with a select group of restaurant owners who support her. Restaurant owners who oppose Wu were barred from entering the press conference in the Eagle Room outside the mayor’s office, prompting them to protest angrily in City Hall.
It was not a good look. Keeping her critics from participating in the presser — or even letting them in the room — made it seem as if Wu couldn’t take the heat. Not exactly the transparency she promised when elected. She also introduced an ordinance — passed by the City Council on Wednesday — to bar her protesters from demonstrating outside her house before 9 a.m.
They were moves designed to quell the outrage while isolating her critics.
Classic divide and conquer strategy.
Good luck with that.
UPDATE (From Ed): Yet another leftist is shocked when Saul Alinsky’s playbook is used against a fellow leftist.
(Updated and bumped.)
MEETING THE CHALLENGES: BIDEN AND HARRIS.
At today’s press conference, President Biden discussed the uneasy situation in Ukraine and issued a challenge to President Putin:
You know, Putin’s been in charge of Russia one way or the other since 1999. That’s almost as long as I’ve been around.
And he’s not so young, either. His days of riding around on a horse without his shirt on are over. I could still do it, you know. I’m mighty fit, and I used to be a jockey and once sat on Secretariat back in my prime. But I knew enough to keep my shirt on.
Now that coward, that bully, that wimp Vladimir Putin is attacking a country much smaller than Russia. I say to him, why don’t you pick on someone your own size, huh? Oh, I know, I know – you’re the biggest country in the world. You must think Russia’s a big f***ing deal.
Neo’s post is strictly in the spirit of April Fools. But this tweet by Rob Reiner is apparently not satirical, given his far left world view: Rob Reiner tweeting rave reviews of Biden’s presidency doesn’t appear to be an April Fools joke.
It’s good to see the old comic actor still delivering belly laughs, albeit unintentionally.
WEIRDLY, ALL THE TRANS AND PEDO STUFF ISN’T CARRYING THIS DEMOGRAPHIC: Dem doom: Biden’s weakest racial demographic in new Quinnipiac poll is … Hispanics.