Archive for 2024
July 23, 2024
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Gen Z Won’t Let Anyone See Their Feet. Here’s Why.
NAH, THEY’LL LINE UP TO DUTIFULLY VOTE FOR THE REPLACEMENT CANDIDATE SELECTED FOR THEM: Conservatives told the truth about Biden. Democrats failed to listen. “If I were a Democrat, I’d be furious right now.”
TO BE FAIR, NOBODY EVER ACCUSED JOE BIDEN OF EXPERTISE: Bari Weiss: Why do we have a crisis of trust? Because the experts keep lying. Joe Biden is only the latest example. Also, to be a “noble lie” it must at least be noble. We have lies galore, but nobility is in short supply.
ED MORRISSEY: Did Democrats Conduct a ‘Palace Coup?’
Besides all of this, a palace coup plot has to have a rational plan in place for alternative leadership. Are we to believe that Democrats did all of this just to have Kamala Harris as their new nominee? Seriously? A Harris nomination was what Democrats hoped to avoid, as Dump Biden leaders made plain with their talk about an “open process” at the convention. That fell apart because of the Kamala Conundrum, but also because none of the suggested candidates to succeed Biden wanted to get their skirts dirty in this process.
This wasn’t a palace coup. It was a panic-induced Abandon Ship! that left the captain on board to sink after he torpedoed his own vessel. That’s not to say that the ousting of Biden isn’t a smelly, corrupt action; it clearly is, and the chaos it unleashed did real damage to the body politic. And for that matter, their years-long conspiracy to cover up Biden’s increasing senility did far worse damage and should destroy their credibility for a generation or more. But to call this a palace coup is to give the hair-tearing panic merchants far too much credit.
Couldn’t the administration call in Woody Allen and Diane Keaton and clone a new Biden out of his nose?
I HOPE NOT BUT…: Biden’s Exit Brings Us Closer to World War in the Middle East.
SCRAPING THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL:
Russian tanks that haven't seen action since murdering civilians on the streets of Budapest and Prague, pulled from museums and given a new life in desperate attempt to gain another square kilometer of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/KskkWjvdAi
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) July 23, 2024
If the goal has been to bleed Putin in a war of attrition so that he can’t threaten the rest of Europe, it’s working.
BUT CAN IT RUN CRYSIS? New quantum computer smashes ‘quantum supremacy’ record by a factor of 100 — and it consumes 30,000 times less power. “Using the new 56-qubit H2-1 computer, scientists at quantum computing company Quantinuum ran various experiments to benchmark the machine’s performance levels and the quality of the qubits used. They published their results June 4 in a study uploaded to the preprint database arXiv. The study has not been peer-reviewed yet.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Joe Biden Wasn’t Brave, Selfless, or Patriotic for Dropping Out.
SCHRÖDINGER’S PRESIDENT: “Biden Passes the Torch as a Voice on a Speakerphone,” Jim Geraghty writes.
This is how the Biden presidency reaches its denouement — a voice on a speakerphone cheering on Kamala Harris, an unseen presence like Charlie from Charlie’s Angels.
Biden is here, but not here; the leader of his party, but not the leader of his party; the commander in chief, but not really in command anymore. He’s Schrödinger’s president
For what it’s worth, when Biden called in to his old campaign headquarters to offer words of support for Harris yesterday, he didn’t sound that bad, or at least not all that different than he has in his last few public appearances. And the latest update from Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, reports that he’s almost back to normal amid his bout with Covid:
His symptoms have almost resolved completely. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear. The President continues to perform all of his presidential duties.
If Biden’s symptoms have almost resolved completely and his vitals are absolutely normal, why is this guy harder to see than J. D. Salinger? I am not exaggerating when I say there have been more Bigfoot sightings than Biden sightings in the past week.
Last night, Sarah linked to Jordan Schachtel’s Substack, headlined, “Exclusive: President Biden suffered an undisclosed medical emergency during his time in Las Vegas, police sources say,” which itself expanded upon a tweet yesterday from Charlie Kirk:
You can also find people on Twitter last night wildly speculating that Biden’s voice on his phone call to Kamala, which sounded unusually hoarse and sibilant, was the result of either a stroke or AI generated. Oliver Wiseman asks at the Free Press, “Where the hell is the president?”
Last Wednesday, Biden flew from Las Vegas, where he had been campaigning, to his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware. It was there that he isolated and stewed, alongside only his immediate family and closest advisers, and reportedly came to the decision to step down. According to the White House daily schedule, the president will reemerge this afternoon and return to Washington.
Assuming that happens, the president’s disappearing act will be over, but it will have been a strange stretch in which Biden vanished at the most crucial moment.
Into the void left by the amazing disappearing president appeared all manner of theories about what is going on. Some wilder than others. Was the president faking his Covid? Did Biden even sign his own announcement? Is he much sicker than his aides and doctors are letting on? Is he even. . . alive?
Until then, it all feels very Soviet, when an administration that came into office promising to “bring transparency and truth back to government,” and ends with a nation of amateur Kremlinologists just wandering what’s going on, and who’s running the show. Or as Steve wrote this morning: When ‘The Death of Stalin’ Comes to Life.
UPDATE: Perhaps I should have said that half the nation are amateur Kremlinologists right now:
BREAKING: FROM JUST THE NEWS. Cheatle resigns:
“Cheatle was facing major criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the Secret Service’s handling of security at the outdoor campaign rally where former President Trump was shot.”
Too little too late?
COURTESY OF THE SAME ELITES WHO CHATTER INCESSANTLY AT US ABOUT “SUSTAINABILITY”: Interest Payments on US National Debt Will Shatter $1,140,000,000,000 This Year – Eating 76% of All Income Taxes Collected. “The economist also reports that interest on the national debt was the single biggest expense for the government in June, far outrunning other critical public services, and the Treasury expects it will break the $1.14 trillion level this fiscal year.”
A (VERY) SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Secret Service head Kimberly Cheatle resigns after shocking failures led to Trump assassination attempt.
Accountability starts at the top, but it doesn’t end there. There needs to be a thorough investigation and there should be other heads that roll, on down the chain of command.
WHAT WE FOCUS ON INSTEAD OF WINNING WARS: DEI, critical race theory pervades military trainings: report.
RATHER CONVENIENT TIMING:
UPDATE (From Ed): Here’s the Politico article that the above Tweet references: Feds discover transcripts of Biden chats with biographer.
OUR TWO-TIER JUSTICE SYSTEM: Prosecutors drop charges filed by Northwestern police against educators involved in campus encampment. The Northwestern employees were charged with obstructing police, months after the encampment came down. Now the cases have been dismissed. This sort of thing is going on in Democrat-controlled jurisdictions all over the country. You are free to violate the law so long as you are doing for a cause the far left supports…
THERE ALSO SEEMS TO BE A CORRELATION WITH SIGNS OF GENERAL EMOTIONAL DISTRESS: Kate Hymowitz: The New Girl Disorder: Why are young women so prominent in anti-Israel protests? I found this essay especially insightful, read the whole thing, as they say.
2024, MAN: When ‘The Death of Stalin’ Comes to Life. “Last night the world learned that in 2024, America is closer to the USSR in 1953 than we should be comfortable admitting, as a new leak revealed that Presidentish Joe Biden was sick with something potentially much more serious than COVID.”
TO BE FAIR, IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO: California’s Firearm Credit Card Tracking Not Tracking Criminals.
AND WORTH EVERY PENNY: Kamala Harris wants to make college ‘tuition-free once and for all.’
WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT “OUR DEMOCRACY,” WHAT THEY MEAN IS IT BELONGS TO THEM:
Within a span of 36 hrs the Democrat establishment, a former president, almost all of Hollywood & progressive billionaire donors have ruthlessly pushed out Biden, a man they have known for a very long time to be frail & locked in Harris without once having to answer to voters pic.twitter.com/yF1ALVk4w9
— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) July 23, 2024
THE CHINA SYNDROME: China cuts several major interest rates to support fragile economy.
The cuts to the central bank’s key short-term policy rate, its market operations rates and benchmark bank lending rates came after China reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter economic data last week and its top leaders met for a plenum that occurs roughly every five years.
The country is verging on deflation and faces a prolonged property crisis, surging debt and weak consumer and business sentiment. Trade tensions are also flaring, as global leaders grow increasingly wary of China’s export dominance.
“The cut today is an unexpected move, likely due to the sharp slowdown in growth momentum in the second quarter as well as the call for ‘achieving this year’s growth target’ by the third plenum,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie.
Bloomberg was more on point with their headline: China Surprises With Rate Cut After Xi’s Big Meeting Disappoints.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Incredible Vanishing President. “You know who didn’t look very concerned yesterday? Kamala Harris. Honestly, I don’t think it’s because she has any concrete knowledge of what’s going on with her boss. This is everything that she hoped for and was beaming for all of her public appearances. It had a decided ‘Man, I’m thrilled he’s finally out of the way,’ feel to it.”
A SUCCINCT SUMMARY OF OUR PRESENT STATE:
The president swore for weeks that he wouldn’t drop out of the race. Then he got sick, disappeared from the public eye, dropped out of the race through a tweet, and hasn’t been seen since. The corporate media is trying to gaslight us into thinking this is all fine and normal.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 22, 2024