Archive for 2022

OPEN THREAD: Show us your best.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Politico Reports White House Anger at CNN Over Negative Coverage of Biden’s ‘Red’ Speech.

Biden surely thought screaming about Democracy Dying would tickle CNN’s sweet spot.

They especially disliked New Day co-host Brianna Keilar — “an outspoken CNN host known for her tough grilling of Trump officials” — when she criticized Team Biden for putting U.S. Marines in the backdrop behind an obvious campaign speech. She said it was “wrong when Democrats do it. It’s wrong when Republicans do it.”

The reporters reminded readers “West Wing Playbook previously reported that Licht met with White House chief of staff Ron Klain earlier this year” to discuss what CNN could do better.

So when CNN White House correspondent JOHN HARWOOD (whose coverage has been harshly critical of DONALD TRUMP) announced he was leaving the network long before his contract was up, it was noticeable how quickly Klain blasted out a number of tweets praising Harwood. Among those including a tweet that criticized Licht by name. One CNN staffer told West Wing Playbook that during an internal meeting this week, Licht brushed off online criticism of the Harwood departure.

Over the weekend, Klain also reposted resistance media personality RICK WILSON’s tweet dubbing CNN “diet Fox” after anchor POPPY HARLOW asked press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE whether Biden would apologize for calling Republicans “semi-fascists.”

“Diet Fox” is hilarious, and clearly inaccurate. They sound like crybabies when Jean-Pierre gets a mildly challenging question. No challenging questions for Democrats! That makes you Diet Fox. They actually expect to be cuddled.

Related: Rasmussen teases bad news for Biden and Dems on how the ‘Red Sermon’ was received by Independents and swing voters.

You spelled “people who aren’t hyper-online enough to spot the Dark Brandon meme and just thought Grandpa Biden suddenly looked scary and menacing and were confused by the whole Nuremberg rally atmosphere” wrong.

BOB TORRICELLI IS PREPARED TO PARACHUTE IN AT A MOMENT’S NOTICE: SC Democrats call on their party’s US Senate nominee to quit.

The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents.

The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge.

Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that she represents a “mostly white” district, adding, of white voters: “I keep them right here — like under my thumbs. … Otherwise, they get out of control — like kids.”

In a statement, Matthews acknowledged her voice on the recording, calling Project Veritas a “satirical MAGA Powered news outlet.”

The compilation also features more of Matthews’ conversation, parts of which were previously published by Project Veritas, in which she spoke to an inmate about funding her campaign with “dope boy money” and having Democrats run as Republicans, saying “secret sleepers” represent “the only way you’re gonna change the dynamics in South Carolina.”

As Michael Graham wrote in 2004 after Frank Lautenberg was swapped in to replace Bob Torricelli on the Democrats’ Senate ticket in NJ, “Don’t assume you know who’s on the Democratic ticket until Election Day.”

STEVE BANNON CHARGED WITH MONEY LAUNDERING IN WALL-BUILDING SCHEME: “Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses. Last year, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, with cyberstalking months after Trump pardoned him in a similar federal case. Like Bannon, Kurson was pardoned early in his federal case, before acquittal or conviction, negating any double jeopardy argument.”

NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Just Amnesty International’s Middle East Director retweeting an obviously play-acting photo purporting to be Israel chaining up a 13 year old Palestinian girl. You don’t have to be an expert to note that those aren’t IDF uniforms, the guns are fake, she is not chained in a way that would prevent her from escaping, and if she were being detained she’d be in zip ties, not chains, in any event. But then again, Amnesty itself is in the business of crude anti-Israel propaganda, so this is entirely consistent.

TWITTER BREAKS OUT THE AIRBRUSHES: Twitter pulls vile tweet by Carnegie Mellon’s critical race theory professor who said she hoped Queen died ‘an excruciating death’ — after Jeff Bezos led avalanche of condemnation.

Twitter later removed the posts for violating their rules.

Her Majesty died today at the age of 96. She passed away surrounded by members of the Royal Family at Balmoral Castle, Scotland.

Anya’s vile words about the Queen were slammed by thousands online, including billionaire Bezos.

Jeff Bezos said: ‘This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.’

Journalist Piers Morgan also added: ‘You vile disgusting moron.’

One horrified user said: ‘Don’t expect that of you but do expect common decency, respect for such a loss. If you cannot give that at this time, you are a disgraceful of a human being.’

Another added: ‘You are just so uncouth and manner-less. You speak of someone who just passed with such a vile and disdaining comment.

Carnegie Mellon University has distanced itself from Anya, telling DailyMail.com that it does ‘not condone the offensive and objectionable messages’.

‘Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster,’ a spokesperson said.

As Melissa Chen of the Spectator tweets, “Disrespectful speech by [Anya] should not be deleted by Twitter out of principle, and out of preserving as much as possible, the norms of free speech. It should also be preserved as an intellectual monument & psychological window into the fad gripping our intelligentsia.”

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot:

Ward 1 is the most diverse ward in DC with the largest immigrant population. I support all of our residents. My priority is keeping our residents safe and making sure they know their rights when ICE comes. Learn more about my work to protect and serve our immigrant residents here.

The District is a sanctuary city, which means our law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE. The Metropolitan Police Department’s policy is that it will not enforce civil immigration laws, which only create a strong divide between the police and community members. MPD officers are also prohibited from asking about residency and immigration status.

“Statement on Recent ICE Actions in Ward 1,” Office of DC Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau, June 25th, 2019.

Chaser:

“The governors of Texas and Arizona have created this crisis,” Nadeau claimed. She said that they weren’t getting any help from the federal government. She said that they’d “learned from border towns.” “In many ways, the governors of Texas and Arizona have turned us into a border town.”

First, no, the governors of Texas and Arizona didn’t “create” this crisis — Joe Biden did by his horrible border policies that are just allowing people to flood across the border. Texas and Arizona are just trying to make Democrats finally acknowledge it is a crisis. Now, people like Nadeau are doing exactly that when they only get several thousand people in their city, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands that have flooded small border towns that don’t even begin tdso have the capacity or facilities that D.C. does. If that is a “public emergency” for D.C. what is it for the border towns? She’s acknowledging by her very comment how bad it is in border towns and she’s upset that it’s happening to D.C. Why weren’t they upset when it was happening to the border towns? Because it didn’t impact them. Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his team aren’t helping them, just like he hasn’t helped the border towns. Just to be clear, D.C. isn’t even approaching anywhere near how bad it’s been for border towns.

“D.C. City Council Member Delivers Hilarious Take on ‘Emergency’ in D.C. From Busing Illegal Aliens,” Nick Arama, Red State, today.

Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.

The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.

It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.

Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.

These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.

Related: Democrats Discover Only The Federal Government Can Solve The Border Crisis.

UPDATE: Democrat mayors prepare to be next targets on Governor Abbott’s sanctuary city list.

ROGER KIMBALL: An American remembrance of the Queen.

I write as an American patriot who is also a confirmed Anglophile. So when I got the sad news this morning that the Queen’s health had taken so dangerous a turn that the palace had summoned her family to Balmoral, I steeled myself for bad news.

Alas, the bad news has now been confirmed. Queen Elizabeth II has died.

It says a lot that when I say “the Queen” even American readers know I can mean only one person. The 96-year-old had just celebrated her platinum anniversary this summer — seventy years on the throne, the longest of any English monarch.

Elizabeth was far and away the most admired head of state in the world. Her good sense, her generosity of spirit, her thoughtful but active reticence have made her one of the most successful monarchs in history. Her long tenure — she was on the throne beginning in the administration of Harry Truman — made her a symbol and a cynosure of stability.

In contrast: “There is reason to worry about the fate of the British monarchy after Elizabeth. Prince Charles is no Commodus to Elizabeth’s Marcus Aurelius. But he is a weak reed with which to support a venerable but also fragile institution.”

Read the whole thing.

 

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: The Biden administration is shelling out nearly $4 million to put “Harm Reduction Kiosks” in rural Kentucky as vending machine distribution centers for drugs (no, not the kind your doc prescribes).