Archive for 2024
June 26, 2024
GOVERNMENT IS NOT ONLY GREEDIER AND STUPIDER THAN YOU IMAGINE, IT IS GREEDIER AND STUPIDER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE: Denmark Taxes Cow Farts Because Everything Is Absurd.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: De Niro, Charlamagne Perfectly Highlight Trump Derangement Syndrome. “It’s the mid-level stages where things get truly worrying.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Denver Trans Illegal Immigrant Makes a Fatally Bad Decision
THEY’RE NOT REAL GOOD AT THINKING THROUGH SECOND-ORDER EFFECTS:
The Biden Administration forcing Ukraine to build its own deep strike weapons is going to be seen is future histories to have been a horrible strategic blunder.⬇️
A blunder that will cause world wide deep strike missiles proliferation past the Missile Technology Control Regime. https://t.co/IA2uYrSYMH
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) June 24, 2024
Upside for Ukraine: Ready export market in Taiwan. And Israel.
NOT JUST A DISAPPOINTMENT, BUT A CONSTITUTIONAL DEBACLE: The Supreme Court rules in favor of Biden administration social media censorship.
UPDATE: More from the NCLA. “Today, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to vacate a historic preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Murthy v. Missouri, finding that the Respondents protected by the injunction lacked standing to support injunctive (that is, future) relief. The injunction had barred officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Surgeon General’s office from encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. Representing Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty, and Ms. Jill Hines, the New Civil Liberties Alliance is disappointed by this dramatic shrinking of Americans’ First Amendment rights. The Court today protected the government’s ability to censor truthful speech that opposed the government’s false and manipulative narratives on multiple aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, including our clients’ true statements challenging government falsehoods about natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, masking, the origins of the Wuhan virus, and many other topics.”
READER FAVORITE: Men’s Running Shorts with Zipper Pockets 7 Inch. #CommissionEarned
WELL, WHAT ELSE HAS HE GOT? Outside advisers urging Biden team to focus on Trump – not first-term record.
CNN’s cranked the denial in this piece up to 11:
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with the campaign, four sources close to the White House said they’ve urged the Biden camp to go on offense on the economy, using the time on the debate stage to challenge Trump’s cozy relationship with corporate America and the inflationary nature of his proposed policies. Biden and Trump square off in the first presidential debate at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday live on CNN.
The behind-the-scenes warnings echo concerns raised by Biden’s longtime aide, Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff who is also prepping the president for Thursday’s debate in lasagna-fueled sessions at Camp David. Earlier this year, Klain reportedly remarked to a private crowd that Biden was spending too much time praising bridges that were being built instead of connecting with voters. The White House at the time denied that Klain’s views were a departure from their strategy.
“Klain gets it,” one of the sources said of the former chief of staff, who is taking vacation from his job as Airbnb’s chief legal officer to return to a role as debate coach.
That’s a departure for Biden, a lifelong politician who has grown accustomed to seeking credit when he feels credit is due, especially as the list of accomplishments has grown longer. His frustration when he feels that credit is withheld can be apparent.
Then there’s this: “’He wants the credit, but it’s not working,’ one top Democrat, who recently shared these concerns with the campaign, said of Biden.”
Why that might be is not addressed.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Welcome to the Second Thirty Years’ War.
THIS SEEMS LIKE A BAD IDEA: All across America, kids go to bed with a story, a kiss, and a potent dose of melatonin. Is there anything wrong with that?
The negative impact of melatonin on kids’ health remains more of an amorphous possibility than a concrete inevitability, which partly explains why so many well-informed parents and caregivers continue to ignore or downplay negative headlines. The American Academy of Pediatrics notes somewhat opaquely that “there are concerns about how it might affect a child’s growth and development” when used at length. “We just don’t know for sure what the impact is, and that’s the problem,” says Lauren Hartstein, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder Sleep and Development Lab, who adds that there’s a shortage of research on the long-term effects of regular melatonin use by children and that the research that does exist has been fairly inconclusive. Participants in a 2018 study reported delayed puberty after taking the hormone for an average of seven years as children. In animal studies, melatonin has been shown to suppress the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which stimulates the production of other hormones that help the ovaries and testicles mature and function. The body’s nocturnal secretion of melatonin tends to drop throughout childhood, paralleling the progression of sexual maturity. Raise the former, and you may be slowing the latter. And a 2022 study concluded that “whether or not melatonin could play an important role in the pubertal onset in humans is still an open question.”
The contents inside the gummy bottles are also a question mark, though the packaging tells a straightforward and cheerful story. Olly, which makes kids’ sleep gummies, as well as gummies made for kids to “chillax” and lollipops for a “calm mood,” packages its sleep gummies in square jars — the word sleep is in all caps, many font sizes bigger than the list of actual ingredients. Nature’s Bounty, meanwhile, calls its Kids Sleep Jelly Beans “a fun and delicious way to promote peaceful sleep in children.”
My kids have been lucky — so have I, for that matter — because they’re both good sleepers. But I’ve found the best way to ensure a good night’s sleep is to wear them out, not melatonin them down.
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Feds Allow Crime, Fudge Numbers, Then Declare Guns a ‘Public Health Crisis.’ “In what I assure you will result in yet another assault on the 2nd Amendment, the freedom-despising, gun-grabbing pinkos in the federal government have declared so-called ‘gun violence’ a public health crisis.”
AND SO IT GOES… AND GOES…: Colorado Republican turmoil undermines the party.
On Thursday, party vice chairwoman Hope Scheppelman shared a video attacking Republican Jeff Hurd, the favorite to replace Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) in the 3rd Congressional District. (Boebert has moved to the 4th.) The original ad included the disclaimer “Paid for by Adam Frisch,” the Democratic nominee. But Scheppelman removed it and reposted the ad dozens of times on social media.
Hurd’s opponent, Ron Hanks, once blew up a photocopier in a campaign stunt. The GOP endorsed Hanks, whose fame has been propelled by Democratic dark money claiming he’s “too conservative.”
Removing the “paid-for” disclaimer and distributing the ad could constitute an in-kind contribution to Frisch and a Federal Election Commission violation.
Meanwhile, if Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams and company have their way, the GOP risks losing a Republican seat and, with it, the balance of power in the House. In turn, Trump could lose a shot at Colorado’s blue-leaning 8th District, where Williams endorsed Janak Joshi as the supposed “America First” MAGA candidate — contra Trump, who backs Gabe Evans.
The amazing thing about the Colorado GOP is that after nearly two decades of being in Circular Firing Squad Mode, they never run out of ammo or targets.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: My Guns Are Here for the Public Health and Not Causing a Crisis. “They’re plucky, the gun-grabbing Dems. No matter how many times their commie confiscation schemes get smacked down by judges who have actually read the Constitution of the United States of America, they regroup with lightning speed and assault freedom from a different angle.”
THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR SHOULD INVALIDATE A SEARCH: Security Cameras Turned Off During Mar-a-Lago Raid ‘For Agent Safety.’
BLUE CITY BLUES: Kevin O’Leary slams ‘wasteland’ San Francisco over store closures, bad policies: ‘It is not America anymore.’
The T.V. personality said that you must “blame the top manager” as well as city administrators and mayors for the current standard of living—or lack thereof.
O’Leary, a vocal critic of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “lack of executional skills,” didn’t mince words when discussing the poor policies put in place by the state’s chief.
Recently, California’s $20 minimum wage hike has become the latest thorn in many businesses’ owners’ sides.
“It’s a mistake, it’s a Gavin Newsom mistake,” O’Leary said when discussing the newly enacted law.
“It’s not just fast food and convenient dining that’s shutting down because they’re unprofitable at $20 a minimum wage. Lots of other businesses are leaving that state,” he continued.
O’Leary admitted that he doesn’t invest in startups in California anymore.
That last item is a big tell. Sacramento’s Bay Area cash cows like Google, Facebook, and Apple aren’t about to pull up stakes and leave California. But the companies that will someday displace cash cows like Google, Facebook, and Apple will be founded in other states.
STRANGE NEW RESPECT FOR THE TRADES: I Went To Yale Law School And Trade School Because American Prosperity Depends On Both Lawyers And Tradespeople.
HE CAN’T: “The phrase that caught my attention is ‘how much work President Biden will need to do ahead of November.’ Biden is supposed to bring these diverse groups together after so many decades of using them as separate blocs and expecting them to vote the same way in the end? Biden can barely do a minimal job of appearing to be a candidate for reelection. How could he perform this magical task in the last 4 months?”
Related: “Since Trump, upon election, will be a lame duck, I think his prime concern should be who will be best able to carry Trumpism forward into the 2028 election and beyond. In that light, isn’t Vance the right pick? Do you realize that J.D. Vance is only 39?”
SANCTUARY STATE, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: Massachusetts Tells Migrants at the Border Not to Come Because State Shelters Are Full