Archive for 2024

September 3, 2024

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

320,000 trafficked children was a small price to pay to end the mean tweets.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green on Sep 3rd, 2024

NO TO RUSHED RENAMINGS. I’ll go further – no to renamings, period. This is a well with no bottom that will drown us all.

Posted at 11:31 am by Robert Shibley on Sep 3rd, 2024

AT LEAST THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE:

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green on Sep 3rd, 2024

WHEN THEY TELL YOU WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY WANT, BELIEVE THEM:

Kamala has the soul of a bad vice principal.

Posted at 9:15 am by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 3rd, 2024

THEY INVITED KAMALA TOO, BUT SHE BLEW THEM OFF, AS IS HER WONT: “We invited Trump:” 8 Gold Star families send video messages to Kamala Harris.

Related: NBC News Issues Correction After Kristen Welker Makes False Claim. “Two points about this. First of all, she’s referring to the dignified transfer ceremony where Joe Biden was seen repeatedly checking his watch. . . . The second and more important point is that VP Harris was not present at the transfer ceremony at all. So Welker’s claim (she says it twice) that ‘they did meet them’ is false. Yesterday, Meet the Press issued a correction on X.”

A tweet is nice, but they should have to repeat this on-air.

Posted at 8:39 am by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 3rd, 2024

DECLINE IS A CHOICE: ‘A very serious situation’: Volkswagen could close plants in Germany for the first time in history.

Volkswagen is weighing whether to close factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history as it moves to deepen cost cuts amid rising competition from China’s electric vehicle makers.

In a statement Monday, the German automaker, one of the world’s biggest car companies, said that it could not rule out plant closures its home country. Other measures to “future-proof” the company include trying to terminate an employment protection agreement with labor unions, which has been in place since 1994.

“The European automotive industry is in a very demanding and serious situation,” said Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume. “The economic environment became even tougher, and new competitors are entering the European market. Germany in particular as a manufacturing location is falling further behind in terms of competitiveness.

Previously: Germany is facing the problem of creeping deindustrialization.

Germany is facing the problem of creeping deindustrialization. This was warned by Gunnar Gröbler, CEO of the Salzgitter steel company, the Financial Times reports.

If producers of key products needed for industry, such as steel and chemicals, leave the region due to high energy prices, there is a risk of losing the entire value chain, he said.

These comments come after 32% of industrial companies surveyed told the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) in August 2023 that they preferred to invest abroad rather than expand domestically. The number is twice as high as in last year’s survey amid concerns about the future without cheap Russian gas.

Salzgitter’s remarks also come at a difficult time for German industry, when several major climate projects have been called into question due to the country’s budget crisis.

Just like the immigration crisis, Berlin knew exactly what would happen and plowed ahead.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green on Sep 3rd, 2024

BYRON YORK: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and Arlington cemetery.

It looks like the fight between the Harris and Trump campaigns over former President Donald Trump‘s appearance at Arlington National Cemetery is intensifying, not diminishing. Vice President Kamala Harris herself posted a statement on X using Trump’s visit to mark the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack as an opportunity to revive the “suckers and losers” slur against Trump. Trump, in turn, produced statements of support from several Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the Biden-Harris administration’s chaotic, violent, and thoroughly bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan — the people whose sacrifice Trump had come to Arlington to respect.

There is no doubt the families had a right to observe the anniversary at Arlington and to invite Trump to be there with them. There is also no doubt that the Army, which administers Arlington National Cemetery, tried to stop the event. (Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth is, of course, a Biden appointee.) Army officials reportedly dragged their feet and “stymied” the families’ request to have Trump, according to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who heard of the families’ problems and enlisted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to intercede with Arlington officials to get approval for the event.

So, Trump went to Arlington. It seems clear that Harris objected to him being there at all since the purpose of his visit was to observe the anniversary of a Biden-Harris fiasco that cost the lives of 13 American servicemen and women, and since the anniversary came in the middle of a presidential campaign. So, there is nothing Trump could have done at Arlington that would have satisfied Harris or her team.

Beyond politics, though, there seemed little objection to Trump’s participation in a wreath-laying ceremony. By some accounts, the Army had provided vague guidance on what happened next, which was the families’ invitation to Trump to visit their loved ones’ grave sites in what is known as Section 60 at Arlington, where veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried. A single cemetery employee, a civilian, objected and was, according to some reports, pushed aside by Trump campaign officials, who deny that any physical altercation occurred.

Perhaps the one image that has most upset Trump’s adversaries is a photo of Trump standing at the graveside with the families, giving his familiar thumbs-up gesture. Kelly Barnett, whose son, Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, was killed at Abbey Gate, requested that Trump come to Arlington and requested the photo. In a recent interview with Newsmax, she had high praise for the staff at Arlington, as well as for Trump.

“The photo was for me,” Barnett said. “Trump was walking away, and I said, ‘Can I get a photo around Taylor’s headstone really fast with my family and my friends?’ It was supposed to be for me.” Then, a picture of the moment ended up in online news reports, controversy exploded, and Barnett blamed Arlington. “It breaks my heart,” she continued, “because I love going to Arlington, and I’ve had nothing but great things and great experiences with the staff there. And it breaks my heart that they’re allowing an employee to act that way.”

Obviously, Barnett’s words will not stop the Harris campaign from doing what it does. But on the thumbs-up gesture — there has been a lot of horrified commentary that Trump would do such a thing at a hallowed place like Arlington National Cemetery. But another way of looking at the moment is that it was an entirely normal part of life and the way people deal with loss, perhaps especially in Section 60. . . . Other people familiar with Section 60 have described family visits that include displays of indescribable grief but also families playing music, laughing, talking with each other, and meeting others in the same situation.

It was poor strategy to make an issue of this.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 3rd, 2024

THAT’S BECAUSE THEY AREN’T READY: The next would-be assassin may be a drone pilot. US law enforcement doesn’t look ready.

What if the would-be Trump assassin had instead used a drone rigged with explosives?

This is becoming a weapon of choice in Ukraine and across the Middle East, a remote-controlled flying bomb that would likely have more seriously wounded the Republican candidate. Security experts warn that inexpensive drones can be easily transformed into dangerous weapons by extremist groups in the West.

For the US Secret Service and other executive protection agencies, keeping prominent figures safe from traditional threats — guns, knives, bombs — is challenging enough. Drones offer a new and dangerous threat that law enforcement isn’t ready for.

“It is the easiest thing in the world to hook a small piece of explosive to a drone, and send it over an event,” Kent Moyer, president of World Protection Group, a California-based private security firm, told Business Insider.

When it comes to protecting dignitaries, or stadium events such as sports and concerts, “nobody is really doing countermeasures against drones,” said Moyer.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Secret Service had countermeasures they aren’t talking about — but I might be surprised if they were being properly employed.

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green on Sep 3rd, 2024

ROBERT SPENCER: Las Vegas Teen Converts to Islam, and Guess What He Did Next. “These are just three men who are on a long and ever-lengthening list of converts to Islam who turn to terrorism, even in the United States, and are largely ignored by the establishment media. As everyone knows or should know by now, the media is interested only in shoring up its narrative, not in reporting actual facts. Now another young man has joined their ranks.”

Posted at 7:02 am by Stephen Green on Sep 3rd, 2024

MATT TAIBBI: Liberalism Removes its Mask: Upper-class America pretended to care about rights, until the rabble moved too close to home.

Columnist Will Oremus noted that although the Durov and Musk cases differ, both “involve democratic governments losing patience with cyberlibertarian tech moguls” who “thumbed their noses at authorities.” He highlighted a “vibe shift,” noting that “high-flying tech leaders will have to think a bit more carefully” about “whose soil they’re on when they step off a plane.”

American liberalism railed against Bush conservatives who said those who didn’t break the law had nothing to hide. Now, once-liberal voices are tripping over each other to make more extreme versions of the same argument. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich published a guide to how to “rein in” Elon Musk in The Guardian that includes a recommendation that “regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest,” adding cheerfully that “global regulators may be on the way to doing this, as evidenced by the 24 August arrest in France of Pavel Durov.” Following up its July article about how “The First Amendment is Out of Control,” the New York Times also has a piece titled, “The Constitution is Sacred. Is it Also Dangerous?”

My old employers at Rolling Stone described defenders of Durov as “far-right extremists” and Musk as a “grandstanding” charlatan seeking to evade “consequences.” All this is in line with views of Kamala Harris, who’s argued that “there has to be a responsibility that is placed” on social media sites to prevent misuse of speech “privileges.” The Harris take previewed the complaint this year by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that the First Amendment was “hamstringing the government,” despite this being its purpose.

I mean, just look at this government. Why wouldn’t you want it hamstrung?

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 3rd, 2024
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