CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Guess What Hunter Biden Wanted Removed From Burisma’s Website. “Some images on Burisma’s then-operational website back in 2014 did not sit well with Hunter Biden. The site featured an image of his father, Joe Biden, who served as vice president of the United States at the time. Joe Biden’s then-counsel as VP, Demetra Lambros, reached out to Eric Schwerin to remove the image of the Delaware liberal and Devon Archer. Did this hit too close to home? Also, I thought Joe never discussed or was aware of his son’s business dealings. Of course, that was a lie.”
Archive for 2023
August 11, 2023
ONCE I WOULD HAVE ASSUMED THIS WAS AN INVESTIGATION, NOW I ASSUME IT’S A COVERUP: Attorney General Garland Appoints a Special Counsel in Hunter Biden Probe.
UPDATE: It’s David Weiss.
THERE WAS A SCANDAL HE DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE? Is This Joe Biden’s Solyndra Scandal?
THIRD AMENDMENT HAPPENINGS:
My old professor, Glenn Reynolds @instapundit, used to love to speculate on how one might make the 3rd amendment relevant again.
This might be the best chance for him to argue his theory of "emanations" and "penumbras" of it if Dobbs hadn't cleared that precedent.
— Joshua Clark (@JWClark45) August 10, 2023
BOOK OF THE DAY: Super Gut: A Four-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight. #CommissionEarned
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
https://t.co/pxzOZgcCos pic.twitter.com/3cfpj9sTW7
— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) August 10, 2023
KRUISER: Let’s Talk About Trump’s Brain-Dead Support of Ronna McDaniel.
Honestly, the 2024 United States presidential election already has everybody in a bad mood and whatever I write about it angers someone on my side. I am routinely accused of being both too pro-Trump and anti-Trump, often on the same day. There’s a small contingent that thinks that I shouldn’t write anything about the election unless it includes a couple thousand words about fraud. When I do write about fraud, it’s never enough. If I write anything positive about Ron DeSantis, heads start catching on fire.
The joy of 21st century politics.
Back to the topic at hand.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel has been, put mildly, absolutely horrible in the role that she’s occupied since 2017. She’s presided over three trainwreck (for the GOP) elections, including last year’s Red Trickle collapse. If she were working in the private sector, security would have escorted her out of the building years ago.
Politics aren’t governed by normal rules, however, especially in Washington.
Read the whole thing.
BIDEN GOING INDIGENOUS: Indigenous knowledge, that is. Never heard of it? Me, neither, but it involves Native Americans and things like using hot nailheads to “cure” diseases.
And yes, we’re all likely to get to know it much better than it merits in the days ahead thanks to President Joe Biden. Hans Bader has the details.
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Pay Attention to the Case of the Murdered Mother in Maryland. “Now some of you may be wondering what I, a columnist, comedian, and loud-mouthed, anti-commie radio host can offer in regard to missing person cases.”
YES, WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE THEY ARE BAD: Jamaal Bowman: The Biden border crisis makes Democrats look bad.
WOEING: Boeing Is Getting Absolutely Destroyed by SpaceX.
For the uninitiated, Boeing and SpaceX were simultaneously awarded flush NASA contracts to build crewed rockets back in 2014, a major milestone in NASA’s renewed efforts to get humans back into space.
But over the years since, Boeing’s quest to kick its Starliner into gear have been nothing short of cursed. Though the Boeing-built spacecraft did finally make it into orbit — and manage to successfully dock, uncrewed, at the ISS last year — its attempts at a crewed mission have been plagued by a long series of hardware and software issues, straight-up shoddiness, and shameful company attempts to skirt basic safety precautions to boot.
As it stands, per ExtremeTech, Boeing has reported a staggering $1.1 billion in losses on Starliner. Given the vast expense of the spacecraft, each unforced error has left Boeing and NASA with a fair share of egg on their faces.
You might think that those losses would force Boeing to fix their broken processes but, so far, that hasn’t been the case.
WHY ARE DEMOCRATS SO SCARED OF A STRONG BLACK MAN? Clarence Thomas must resign because he went on vacation or something.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: What Color Is the Sky in Chris Christie’s World? “Gov. Has-Been certainly is feeling full of himself after barely eking onto the debate stage, isn’t he?”
DON’T GO TO COLLEGE IN CALIFORNIA: California Supreme Court: No Right to In-Person Cross-Examination of Accuser During Campus Sexual Assault Proceedings. “The court highlighted the need to keep the accuser from ‘being retraumatized by the disciplinary process.’ Critics challenged this reasoning, arguing a Title IX proceeding exists to determine whether trauma occurred in the first place.”
MATT TAIBBI: Campaign 2024: Not Left Versus Right, But Aflluent Versus Everyone Else. “The realignment of major parties away from blue against red and toward a rich versus poor dynamic is America’s most undercovered political story.”
It’s uncovered because the journalists are almost all on one side.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Fifth Circuit: A Marijuana User Doesn’t Lose His Gun Rights When He Isn’t High. The court quoted from an amicus brief that I submitted along with a number of other professors of Second Amendment law.
Full opinion here.
UPDATE: More here.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Professor Amy Wax—The Disciplinary Committee’s Decision Is Expected By September 5, 2023: What Is At Stake? “In fact, the real ‘problem’ is not that Professor Wax had singled out Professor Allen or other Black members of the Penn community, but that Professor Wax makes these statements in public, all the time, to one-and-all. The real ‘problem’ is that you disagree with the purportedly illiberal content of her alleged statements.”
The nation will no longer purchase currencies on the global market from August 10 through the end of the year, Russia’s central bank said in a statement on Wednesday. It will, however, continue to sell foreign currencies located in its sovereign wealth fund worth up to 2.3 billion rubles or $23 million dollars a day, which it has been using to help fund its war against Ukraine.
In a separate statement, the central bank added it had begun pilot testing a digital version of the ruble, which it has planned to do since July to prop up its weakening currency.
The digital ruble will be tested with a limited number of clients across 13 banks, though the Russian central bank aims to launch the currency for public use by 2025.
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s summer counteroffensive so far hasn’t accomplished much (if anything) more than Moscow’s winter/spring offensive.
This would be a great time for Washington to get serious about getting both sides to the table, but Washington isn’t run by serious people.
WHEN YOU DEDICATE YOURSELVES TO MAKING PEOPLE’S LIVES WORSE, EVENTUALLY THEY NOTICE: Ruy Teixeira: The Democrats’ Nonwhite Working-Class Problem Re-Emerges.
The latest New York Times/Siena poll has made an impact and underscored the Democrats’ vulnerabilities on many fronts. The poll found Trump and Biden tied in a 2024 trial heat 43-43, with 16 percent saying they are undecided, would vote for another candidate or not vote at all. There are many striking demographic patterns in this result but one of the most striking has been little talked about: Biden’s weakness among nonwhite working-class (noncollege) voters. Biden leads Trump by a mere 16 points among this demographic. This compares to his lead over Trump of 48 points in 2020. And even that lead was a big drop-off from Obama’s 67-point advantage in 2012.
This evolving weakness among nonwhite working-class voters is a direct threat to the massive margins Democrats need to maintain among nonwhite voters to achieve victory. That is because these working-class voters are two-thirds to three-quarters of the nonwhite vote so the direction they trend in will drive the nonwhite vote as a whole.
Why is this happening? The beginning of wisdom is understanding that the nonwhite working class is not particularly progressive while the Democratic Party has become more so. In the Times poll, these voters overwhelmingly say they are moderate-to-conservative, with less than a quarter identifying as liberal. This has created increased contradictions between the Democratic Party and the nonwhite working-class voters they have relied upon for huge margins to make up for shortfalls elsewhere. . . .
Should “transgender athletes… be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity” or should they “only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender?” By a staggering 70 to 26 percent, moderate-to-conservative nonwhite working-class voters chose the second option, that sports team participation should be determined by birth gender, directly contradicting current Democratic Party doctrine. But nonwhite and white college grad liberals are exactly the reverse, endorsing the Democrats’ gender identity stance by 40 points each. Again, it is easy to see to whom today’s Democratic Party is really listening.
Indeed. Related: Our Ruling-Class Monoculture.
I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS: A Ninth Circuit federal judge (in dissent) has finally gone on record agreeing with me that a portion of the federal hate crimes statute is unconstitutional. I tried to get the Supreme Court to take the issue three times (and failed all three times).
Congress claims to have the authority to prohibit “hate crimes” pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment (which prohibits slavery). That’s quite a stretch. Slavery? Really? Maybe the Supreme Court will take the case now.