Archive for 2022
November 10, 2022
UM, BECAUSE IT’S COLD AND FLU SEASON? Flu and colds are back with a vengeance — why now? At least this article admits that it’s lockdown fallout: “Hensley says that this is because the population ‘is more immunologically naive than what we would expect in most years’. Normally, children get infected by their second birthday. Now, ‘you’re going to end up having kids that are three, four years of age right now who have never seen RSV’.”
MATT MARGOLIS: This Explains the Lack of a Red Wave More Than Anything Else.
All the fundamentals were in the Republicans’ favor, yet while the GOP is still on track to win the majority in the House and maybe eke out a 51-seat majority in the Senate, the red wave many of us were expecting didn’t happen.
There are many theories about why the elections played out as they have. Many believe it was a lack of quality candidates, or the issue of abortion, or even Donald Trump. But on Wednesday, Tucker Carlson of Fox News offered his explanation for the Republican Party’s dismal midterm election results despite a favorable environment — and it makes perfect sense.
“[T]he mechanics of an election. They matter. In fact, they matter sometimes more than any individual running in the election. The way people vote makes a big difference to the outcome,” he explained.
Case in point: Pennsylvania.
The GOP has always been awful on this. Part of that was due to a consent decree that has since been dissolved, but they haven’t changed. Too worried about being called racists by people who call them racist to manipulate them.
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K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Connecticut 7th grade teacher details sexual fantasies with minor students to Project Veritas.
BREAKING Project Veritas: Connecticut School Director Placed "On Leave" After Detailing Sexual Fantasies with Minor Students
"They [students] are naughty”
"They spread their legs wide open…just brutal"
“Every day there is different panties on"https://t.co/i92e5FA28B
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 10, 2022
Related: A Word to the Wise Liberal. “This is a PSA to all male Democrat staffers: If a really hot chick goes on a few dates with you, there’s a 75% chance that she works for James O’Keefe.”
UM, NO? Zoom Meetings Are Coming to a Tesla Near You.
Many of us are living in a remote work world now, which means we now sit through endless video meetings instead of piling into boardrooms. Tesla hopes to turn your car into another meeting space, announcing that Zoom would soon come to its EVs’ infotainment systems.
The feature was revealed at a Zoom product conference, not by Tesla. That said, Elon Musk previously confirmed that in-car meetings were coming, so this isn’t a total surprise. Zoom pulled back the curtain on the tech at the Zoomtopia 2022 event.
Tesla has come up with plenty of useful features, but just as many of its quirky “innovations” are less clever. Despite that, and the fact that it’s easy to pile on Tesla, this actually looks like a helpful feature. The teaser video from Drive Tesla Canada shows a person using the feature while charging their Tesla, allowing them to make use of otherwise dead time.
I’m not sure the ability to have work meetings while you’re forced to wait on your car is a good selling point.
VDH: Tuesday Takeaways.
To the degree Republican gubernatorial candidates not supported by Trump easily won their races in states like Georgia and Ohio, they helped Trump-supported senatorial candidates. To the degree Trump-supported gubernatorial candidates lost badly such as in Pennsylvania, they hurt Trump-supported senatorial candidates.
Trump’s pre-election unexpected attack on DeSantis may have turned off a few thousand independents and Republicans from voting for Trump-affiliated candidates. And his pre-midterm boast that he would likely run for president may have scared — and energized — some last-minute, hard-core anti-Trumpers and Democrats to go out to vote.
Pollsters got it wrong — again. But this time once trustworthy conservative pollsters had little inkling that the simmering left-wing base was enthused by wild talk of abortion and insurrection. The real under-polled voters were not silent, wary Trump supporters, but this time around seething upscale women and college students.
Final takeaways?
Democratic opposition to a flawed and impaired Biden running again in 2024 will recede. Republican loyalty to the unpredictable Trump could fade.
And both those realities will empower DeSantis.
As Michael Barone notes, “The biggest winner of election 2022 was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Four years ago, he carried Florida 50%-49%, by just 32,000 votes, and he has been under repeated attack by the national press for his policies on COVID, concentrating on protecting the elderly and insisting on open schools and outdoor activities, and for a bill forbidding overt sexual material in kindergarten through third grade. His mettle was tested when Hurricane Ian attacked southwest Florida on Sept. 28 at a point not predicted by meteorologists (weather experts have improved greatly in recent decades but aren’t perfect). He got the Pine Island bridge repaired within three days and the Sanibel Island bridge repaired in three weeks rather than the predicted three months. He didn’t just promise to build things — he delivered. This year, DeSantis won reelection by 19 points, a 1,506,000-vote margin, in the state that George W. Bush carried in 2000 by a 537-vote margin after 35 days of recounts and litigation.”
TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: What will the final GOP tally be in the House?
HOLIDAY DEAL: Beats Solo3 Wireless On-Ear Headphones. #CommissionEarned
JOEL KOTKIN: The Democrats’ false victory. A progressive bloodbath has merely been delayed.
When Democrats performed poorly in the past, they were forced to rethink their politics. After Walter Mondale suffered a landslide defeat to Reagan in 1984, the Democratic Leadership Council was set up to steer the ship towards the centre — and ultimately supported both a young Bill Clinton and, to an extent, Biden himself. In turn, the DLC was inspired by the moderate Coalition for a Democratic Majority, founded after Nixon’s trouncing of McGovern in 1972. Today, however, it’s hard to say that now is the time for a new political vision when virtually all the high-profile blue state Democrats won, sometimes by wider than expected margins.
So, rather than using the next two years to regroup and craft a political programme that could win the next election, the Democrats now appear stuck with a weak leader who appears unfit to deal with the global challenges that will define America in the coming decade. Internally, too, the Democrats look increasingly unstable. A stronger-than-expected Midterms performance doesn’t mask the fact that the progressives remain a dominant faction in the party — with an associated agenda that, outside of deep blue-college towns and core cities, commands remarkably low levels of support, as Barack Obama and others have warned.
Sticking to such a programme threatens the party’s already weakening hold on working-class voters, in particular those threatened by climate policies. Over time, the economic implications of Biden’s green agenda may be obvious, but for now they are hidden amid massive deficits and increased transfer payments. However, as Democratic strategist Ruy Teixeira has noted, in the longer run, the party’s emphasis on “de-growth” and austerity is unlikely to attract middle and particularly working-class voters.
Read the whole thing.
WHAT SHE SAID: I don’t believe you.
Seriously, what she said with bells on and a side of “I told you so before this all happened.”
READER FAVORITE: Instant Read Meat Thermometer for Cooking. #CommissionEarned
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China ditches expendable rocket plan for its Moon program.
UH HUH. SURE. WHATEVER. I see Elon has not turned off the “bald-faced propaganda” switch at Twitter (yet, hopefully?)
“Voting by mail is safe and secure.” Literally nobody believes this. And I am old enough to remember when it didn’t take days to count votes, because I am older than 20. Live not by lies.
DID SOMEONE DO GAIN OF FUNCTION RESEARCH ON THIS? Mysterious outbreak of bone-eating TB resembles an ancestral form.
SOMETIMES YOU LICK THE TOAD, SOMETIMES THE TOAD LICKS YOU: National Park Service warns visitors to stop licking psychedelic toads.
JOHN NOLTE: Report Says Disney Wants to Make Indiana Jones … a Girl.
The biggest test screening disaster involves one cut of the film that has “Phoebe-Waller Bridge replacing Harrison Ford at the end of the movie.”
“Another unpopular conclusion had Ford’s Indiana Jones dying,” writes Ruimy. “Presumably, this would set up the franchise for further sequels with Ford not returning.”
Ford not returning is obvious. He’s 80.
This is about the brand, and only the woke groomers over at Disney could destroy the Indiana Jones brand.
After all, it was Disney that took the most beloved movie franchise in history, Star Wars, and woke-raped it until it was no longer viable as anything other than a TV show.
And allow me to add this: Who the hell is Phoebe-Waller Bridge?
I’m vaguely aware of the name. I know the woketards love her. She had a TV show on Amazon that lasted a few seasons. This is who they want to make the next Indiana Jones? Some girl who was on TV for a few years? You can see the logic behind handing the Indy baton to an Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, or Milla Jovovich. It would still be a terrible idea. But those actresses are movie stars with some credibility in the action genre.
Exit quote: “The Star Wars film franchise was so foolproof even George Lucas’s stillborn prequels couldn’t kill it. Indiana Jones is so foolproof even the dreadful Kingdom of the Crystal Skull couldn’t kill it. But Disney can kill Indiana Jones. Disney can kill anything.”
JONATHAN TURLEY: Washington’s Pandora’s Box: The Opening of the Hunter Biden Laptop Could Expose the Cottage Industry of Influence Peddling. “Washington is famous for managing scandals. Indeed, it is a virtual artform in the Beltway. However, there is one investigation that comes the closest to Pandora’s box for the Washington establishment. A serious investigation into the Hunter Biden scandal could put the political and media elite into an existential crisis.”
SENATOR BLUTARSKY APPROVES THIS MESSAGE: Travel, drugs, alcohol: survey shows how Biden student loan bailout recipients will spend extra money.
JUST NBC THE MISOGYNY! MSNBC Levies Disgusting, Yet Telling Attack on Lauren Boebert.
Get it? Because Boebert is objectively pretty, obviously the only other job she can get after politics (if it comes to that) is doing porn. This dude should go on Jimmy Kimmel’s show with jokes like that.
Of course, one look at Bardella would tell you he’s an absolute beta who doesn’t know how to talk about women outside of misogynistic tropes. It’s also pretty telling that his mind went straight to OnlyFans at the first mention of a woman he probably fantasizes about in his free time.
What is it with MSNBC and misogyny, given their previous vile attacks on Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton?
Related: Fellow Democrat Claire McCaskill’s ‘not gonna be lectured on hypocrisy’ for enjoying Kurt Bardella’s vile swipe at Boebert