OUR MORAL BETTERS: The crafter of language, Margaret Atwood, proffers a “hints”/”details” distinction and now proclaims what she knew but did not know to be “horrifying.” “If something horrifying might be true, but you only have ‘hints’ and not ‘details,’ you have some responsibility. Not only was Atwood Munro’s friend, but Atwood writes books that purport to nudge and instruct us about morality. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ seems to be taken as a perceptive observation of the evils inherent in our culture, a warning to see and to act before it is too late.”
Archive for 2024
July 11, 2024
OH NOES! Scary Report Reveals SpaceX Manly Men Get Things Done. “I also can’t help but think that ‘bro culture,’ which isn’t limited to men any longer, still has a place in American life — and ought to.”
THIS DIDN’T EXACTLY REQUIRE TOP-NOTCH SPYCRAFT*: Foreign spies likely knew of Biden’s age-related decline, former NSA counterspy says.
*Yet was still beyond the intelligence-gathering abilities of American journalism.
THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS NOT TO PLAY: Cultural Appropriation — You Sure You Wanna Play That Game?
Christian Allaire is upset. As Senior Fashion and Style Writer at Vogue magazine and self-described “champion” of Indigenous stories and artists, he laments the sight of his Native culture being “reduced to a kind of gimmick” and “reduced to caricature” in the fashion world. He calls this “appropriation.”
Per his online biography, Allaire hails from the Nipissing First Nation in Ontario, Canada, from which he derives his Ojibwe heritage. You would never know it from the pictures, which betray a whiter-than-white effeminate marshmallow who looks less like a proud Indigenous “champion” of anything and more like a backup dancer. If Elizabeth Warren and Ward Churchill had a love child…
Allaire isn’t alone in his outrage. Jeremy Helligar at Reader’s Digest is in a tizzy because Bo Derek wore her hair in cornrows. In 1979. And he’s upset that the crows in the cartoon Dumbo had caricatured black voices. In 1941.
Read the whole thing.
BEST SELLER: Stanley Quencher H2.0 FlowState Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Tumbler. #CommissionEarned
AXIOS: Behind the Curtain: Mad media vs. beat-up Biden.
A true Washington psychodrama will unfold today a mile from the White House, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
- A red-hot press corps — which feels ignored, used and deceived — will get its first true unfiltered crack at grilling President Biden, the most media-sheltered president of modern times. “The dogs are loose,” a Biden adviser told us.
- Biden, bitter over media coverage of his age and acuity, gets his shot at redemption — a chance to show the press and public he can think fast, handle the heat, and spar and speak improvisationally without glitching.
Why it matters: The stakes are even higher than during the first presidential debate. If Biden looks weak and wobbly, his Democratic critics will pounce and crank up resignation calls. If he looks strong and steady, the anti-Biden campaign could stall.
- Biden’s every word and move will be dissected, every mangled sentence scrutinized, every stiff move or mind freeze discussed.
The big picture: Senior Democrats are increasingly bearish about the chances Biden stays at the top of the ticket. “I think this weekend is critical,” said a former top government official. “I expect key conversations to happen at the end of the week after NATO. But the reality is setting in. The numbers are bad. The money is frozen. The path isn’t there.”
Kurt Schlichter writes: Biden Aside, the Regime Media Is Toast Too.
Yes, for the next couple of decades, every time the regime media says anything to us, our response needs to be, “What about Russiagate, Laptopgate, and Dementiagate?” To the limited extent that any Republican ever again goes on any of those regime channels or talks to any of the regime reporters, the first thing out of his mouth needs to be, “You’ve already shown yourself to be liars by pretending Joe Biden wasn’t senile until he senile all over himself on the debate stage, so I don’t expect to be treated fairly here. I expect you to continue to lie to your viewers and to me, and I’m going to point it out. Now, what are your loaded questions?”
The regime media could never endure for long pretending to be objective to get the benefits and respect an objective outlet is entitled to while simultaneously shrimping the toes of the Democrat Party. This collapse was inevitable. This humiliation was deserved. And this farce will never be forgotten.
Mark Judge, at the Washington Examiner: Recovering from the journalism crisis: Reporters need to learn to apologize.
Don’t laugh. The media once knew how to do this. The best example is the Richard Jewell story. In 1996, after Jewell, a security guard, discovered a bomb at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park and helped clear the crowd, he was declared a hero by the press.
Days later, reporter Kathy Scruggs was told by a law enforcement source that Jewell was the FBI’s foremost suspect. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran the story that made Jewell the villain. CNN reported the AJC article, and for the next 88 days, Jewell was hunted by reporters. He was one of the first victims of what would become known as “trial by media.” When his name was finally cleared, Jewell, who died in 2007, sued the New York Post, NBC News, and CNN and settled with all three.
In what today would be considered an astonishing move, CNN producer Henry Schuster actually wrote an apology to Jewell: “I made Richard Jewell famous — and ruined his life.”
Imagine a journalist in 2024 having this kind of integrity and self-reflection. Russiagate, the Covington Catholic students, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Kyle Rittenhouse, the conservatives who sounded the alarm about President Joe Biden’s health years ago and were mocked, the child who dressed up in face paint for the Kansas City Chiefs and was accused of using blackface — the list of those wronged by the press is long. Yet reporters now seem sociopathic, incapable of remorse or human feeling. They won’t ever simply apologize.
Where would they start?
UPDATE: Scoop: Biden poised to face “deluge” of fresh calls to drop out.
ENGINEERING MARVEL: What Does It Take To Keep the Lights On and the Traffic Flowing Through the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels? “Fifty-one years after the first bore opened, the tunnels are undergoing the largest overhaul in their history. The upgrades will be significant—but will they be enough to keep the critical east-west passage open for decades to come?”
More:
The inability to green-light ambitious infrastructure projects is happening all over the country. Most of President Joe Biden’s lauded $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for example, will go toward repairing or upgrading existing infrastructure instead of funding new projects on the scale of the EJMT. Even that $1.2 trillion is half of what the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the United States would need to invest over the next decade to simply maintain its ports, electrical grids, bridges, and transportation networks in a “state of good repair.” “There is something kind of nostalgic [about the EJMT]—that they could gather the will and the funding and the common commitment to build these kinds of incredible engineering marvels,” says Steven Jackson, a Cornell University professor whose areas of study include the maintenance of infrastructure systems. “There’s some question if we even remember how to do that or know how to do it together anymore.”
Sad.
Since everyone is discussing the young black girl in Joe Biden's audience that was passed and ignored as if she was invisible…
Here is a 5-minute video compilation of Joe Biden's racist behavior: pic.twitter.com/tSE0F6sOMr
— Free the World 🇺🇲🌏🦅 (@PatriotVerity) July 7, 2024
UPDATE:
Biden’s campaign got a radio station to edit out the president saying: “I have more Blacks in my administration than any other president, all other presidents combined, and in major positions, cabinet positions” https://t.co/WRJYnIDuvv
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) July 11, 2024
GIVE THIS TO BIDEN IN 1998: New Test Could Tell if You Have Early Signs of Dementia With High Accuracy.
SCHADENFREUDE:
Good.
We all warned them. We told them over and over he was senile and that it would blow up in their faces. They called us liars and went full-steam ahead.
Now, they get to learn what consequences are. https://t.co/H2JfQTBkKl
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) July 10, 2024
What I’m waiting for is just one head to roll at any of the major news outlets for four years spent sitting on the biggest presidential news since Watergate.
I’ll be waiting a good, long while, it seems, because none of the major news outlets give a damn about their credibility.
WORSE THAN GAMBLING AT RICK’S CAFE — ABC NEWS MANAGEMENT DISCOVERS GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS IS BIASED! ABC’s brutal ultimatum to George Stephanopoulos after his damning verdict on Joe Biden – as network plunged into ‘fully fledged crisis.’
News division president Debra O’Connell called a panicked meeting with advisers and executives on Tuesday night, including public relations consultants, it was reported.
‘This was a fully fledged crisis and it exploded with far-reaching reverberations,’ an insider claimed to Radar Online.
She is then said to have hauled Stephanopoulos into a private meeting where she gave him an ultimatum: apologize or be yanked off air.
Stephanopoulos both hosts Good Morning America and is a moderator on current affairs panel show This Week.
ABC bosses were reportedly concerned the veteran broadcaster had expressed a private opinion that would fatally undermine his appearance of objectivity.
‘[O’Connell told him] in no uncertain terms that he is a newsman who is expected to be objective,’ the insider told Radar.
‘She was furious that someone of George’s experience and status would compromise the news division’s impartiality, and subject it to unnecessary and embarrassing headlines.
‘George backed Debra into a corner. If he did not apologize, how could he continue with his duties at ABC News without the network facing an avalanche of criticism.’
The insider, however, claimed that even though Stephanopoulos backed away from his comment and ‘minimized it as a quip’, ABC bosses knew the damage was done.
‘You can expect the Trump campaign and GOP to seize on this. You can also expect the White House to avoid ABC News moving forward. Biden will never sit down with Stephanopoulos ever again,’ they said.
According to Variety, Disney named O’Connell president of ABC News in February, after decades of toiling at various divisions within Disney and ABC. And I know it can be difficult for a new executive to get up to speed with the culture of the division he or she has been tasked to lead. But does O’Connell know that she works for a TV news division, which during the 2004 presidential race, back when the players were George W. Bush and John Kerry, issued a statement that it would not “reflexively and artificially hold both sides ‘equally’ accountable?”
An internal memo written by ABCNEWS Political Director Mark Halperin admonishes ABC staff: During coverage of Democrat Kerry and Republican Bush not to “reflexively and artificially hold both sides ‘equally’ accountable.”
The controversial internal memo obtained by DRUDGE, captures Halperin stating how “Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.”
But Halperin claims that Bush is hoping to “win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.”
“The current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done,” Halperin writes.
Halperin’s claim that ABCNEWS will not “reflexively and artificially hold both sides ‘equally’ accountable” set off sparks in St. Louis where media players gathered to cover the second presidential debate.
Halperin states the responsibilities of the ABCNEWS staff have “become quite grave.”
In August, Halperin declared online: “This is now John Kerry’s contest to lose.”
Does O’Connell know George Stephanopoulos’ background, and that in 2015, he tossed at least 75K into Hillary Clinton’s slush fund?
As Jim Treacher wrote yesterday: George Stephanopoulos Accidentally Tells the Truth. That’s a big no-no:
It took TMZ to get the truth out of a lifelong liar like Stephanopoulos. Just like it took the National Enquirer to get to the truth about John Edwards and the secret daughter he had with his nutty campaign aide back in 2008. Sometimes you gotta dig around in the gutter to find a gem.
Now the libs are furious at this tiny little man for expressing his genuine opinion. How can the Democrats stop the Big Orange Liar, if one of their soldiers can ruin the whole thing in a regrettable moment of unintentional honesty?
And as Treacher paraphrases today:
"You're a newsman and must be objective. Don't you know this will only help Trump?"
They can't hear themselves.https://t.co/kWKb1tZP5j
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) July 11, 2024
EVERYTHING IS SCARY: Few Americans understand dangers of raw milk.
JOHN PODHORETZ: The Case for Schadenfreude.
The agony here is all on one side. And it’s not my side. It’s being experienced by people who have spent the past eight years bathing luxuriantly in their own self-infatuated sense of their political virtue as demonstrated by their fixated hatred on all things Trump. That fixation either prevented them from seeing or kept them from admitting or gave them the permission structure for lying about the severity of Joe Biden’s condition. Now they are finding themselves in the choppiest political-emotional waters anyone has experienced in politics since the Republican New Hampshire primary in 2016 began to make it clear to non-revolutionary conservatives that our ideas had been supplanted and our understanding of the political rules was outdated. The people who are suffering today actually thought themselves immune from the self-doubts and sense of despair that gripped people like…me.
I was speaking to a friend, a very serious Catholic, who confessed (sorry) that he was enjoying the spectacle so much he felt guilty for his schadenfreude. I asked him whether this was because he thought his emotion did not befit a Christian. He said yes. I said, well, I don’t have that particular problem. I haven’t had this good a time in years. I hope there are another couple of polls to give Biden hope. That will keep all this going, and keep me entertained. Not much good can come out of any of this, so, just as the doctor told the young Alvy Singer when Alvy said he was depressed because the universe was expanding, “we might enjoy ourselves while we can, hah?”
As long as we’re doing old Woody Allen jokes, Steve Hayward explores: Dems: Facing the Abyss Inside the Abyss.
When Democrats stare into the abyss-inside-the-abyss that is Kamala Harris, it is suddenly understandable that many conclude they’d be better off sticking with Biden after all. Smarter Democrats know they need to pass over Harris if they are to have any hope of winning, but are terrified at the prospect of angering their identity politics factions they have negligently empowered over the last three decades.
I’m reminded at this point of a commencement address Woody Allen once wrote (but never delivered as far as I know), which I paraphrase thus:
More than any other time in history, Democrats face a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
[Paraphrased from Side Effects, p. 57.]
Still though, as the line from a film that came out the same year as Annie Hall reminds us, “don’t get cocky.”
WELL, YEAH: Dems Privately Admit Trump Is No Threat to Democracy. “‘I can live with Donald Trump winning,’ is what elected Democrats privately admit to New York Times columnist and Vox cofounder Ezra Klein, in discussions that are so far off the record that Klein’s notes have been tucked away in that Indiana Jones warehouse.”
UPDATE (From Ed):
I dunno how this sort of deranged rhetoric became normal. If Dems actually believed this, they would be moving assets off shore and fleeing the country in makeshift boats given the current polling. https://t.co/IzyJl1FyHV
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) July 11, 2024
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Colorado health officials confirm case of human plague.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, LOWER YOUR STANDARDS: Up, up and away: ‘Recalibration’ is raising AP exam scores.
BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: AOC Files Articles of Impeachment Against Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito.
MORE ON SCHOOLS AND SEX ABUSE: Hot for Teacher: Eros and Education.
ENDING THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY: University of Florida withholds diploma, suspends pro-Palestinian activists. “The University of Florida is not a day care, and we do not treat protesters like children—they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences.”
MEH, WHAT HAVE THE XENOS DONE FOR US?
Democrat Rep. Summer Lee suggests that passing a law that only American citizens can vote in our elections is a "xenophobic attack."
They really really want illegals to vote. pic.twitter.com/3lnh65wido
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 10, 2024
Also, whenever lefties are throwing around the suffix “phobic,” it means they’re trying to con you.
COLORADO: Inflation closes our favorite restaurants.
“It’s something that we’ve seen statewide,” said Colin Larson, director of affairs for the Colorado Restaurant Association, as quoted by Fox 21 News in Colorado Springs.
Restaurateurs — those holding on and those closing their doors — say inflation is crushing them and their customers. Restaurants can’t find food supplies at prices affordable to consumers who have less to spend because of inflation affecting other goods and services they need.
No state has suffered more restaurant inflation in the past year than Colorado, which saw a whopping increase of 24% in 2023 based on U.S. Census Bureau data. For average wage earners, eating out is no longer an option.
This is not a slight increase relative to the rest of the country. While prices at Colorado restaurants increased 24%, they decreased by 6% in Alaska. Florida’s restaurant prices decreased by 2%, Hawaii’s by 3% and Tennessee’s by 5%.
The cause for Colorado’s problem is no mystery. Only seven states have a higher nontip minimum wage mandates than Colorado’s $14.42. Denver’s minimum is a whopping $18.29. Few states, if any, have imposed more rules and restrictions on small employers.
The economic beatings will continue until conditions improve.
What is the Media Forensics Hub? Described as “an interdisciplinary team of researchers working to study and combat online deception,” the project kicked off in 2017. That was the year communications professor Darren Linvill and economics professor Patrick Warren joined forces to “uncover and expose” millions of tweets they attributed to Russian trolls. Sponsored by the taxpayer-funded South Carolina Research Authority, the Hub was officially launched in May 2020. Two years later, along with the University at Buffalo and several other institutions, it received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Last May, Racket filed a FOIA request with Clemson. Our search produced a series of emails that make explicit reference to the university’s dealings with federal law enforcement agencies (providing Clemson “help with resources,” among other things), social media companies, and the news media. The Clemson files are difficult to summarize, but offer probably the most comprehensive portrait we’ve gotten yet of the role such ostensibly non-governmental “anti-disinformation” research institutions can play as middleman organizations. These emails also document the high degree of influence the school had with federal agencies and media, even if Twitter was not always as cooperative.
A summary of key communications is listed below, while three new batches of documents have been uploaded to the Racket FOIA library, where as always, they’re not paywalled.
Read the whole thing.