Archive for 2024

#JOURNALISM:

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA:

Flashback: “In a famous Soviet joke, then-leader Leonid Brezhnev shows his mother his luxury apartment, his limousine, his fancy country house and his helicopter only to have her object: ‘But what if the communists come back?’”

TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY REACHES TERMINATION POINT:

As Glenn noted in the very early days of Instapundit, “As the old saying has it, the left looks for heretics and the right looks for converts, and both find what they’re looking for. The effect is no doubt subliminal, but people who treat you like crap are, over time, less persuasive than people who don’t. If people on the Left are so unhappy about how many former allies are changing their views, perhaps they should examine how those allies are treated.”

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: “At least nine people stabbed, several dead, by what appears to be a lone perp, around an hour ago, at a ‘diversity festival’, in…Solingen, Germany. Perp on the run, perp & reasons unknown, massive manhunt underway.”

KIRA DAVIS: The Beyoncé Campaign.

The DNC is well known for their high profile celebrity guest roster. This year the heaviest hitters showed up to take the stage — the Obamas and Oprah Winfrey.

So, it was a bit surprising when rumors of a REALLY BIG guest to close out the convention began swirling. Who could be bigger than Oprah? TMZ appeared to be the main source of this massive “stunning-if-true” surprise. They claimed the surprise guest would be Beyoncé Knowles herself. The mainstream media, never a group to let themselves be distracted by actual journalism, spent the entire day chattering about the rumor and speculating about the impact of such an appearance. Not a single word had been uttered by the Beyoncé camp, the Harris/Walz campaign or any credible news source about her possible appearance but Beyoncé’s celebrity cloud of glitter and awe descended upon the United Center anyway, and its occupants were helpless to resist the gravity.

I felt it had to be Taylor Swift, even though that would be a blow to her fiancé’s fanbase and could possibly cause a negative media storm for his upcoming football season. I felt it could be Beyoncé — she’s certainly a big get — but she has performed at inaugurations and other political events in the past. It wouldn’t be a huge “surprise” to see her on that stage, although it would certainly be exciting for the audience.

As we all know by now, it turns out the big “surprise” was Kamala Harris.

No wonder the DNC-MSM felt the strong urge to goose the ratings: How Much of This Harris Speech Viewership was Fueled by Media Hyping DNC ‘Special Guest’ Rumors?

UPDATE:

I FORGOT TO CONGRATULATE REP. MASSIE EARLIER ON THIS:

IT’S AS IF THE PEOPLE RUNNING THINGS WANT US TO BE WEAK VIS-A-VIS CHINA:

A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER:

MAYBE HE WAS ALWAYS THIS SHRUNKEN AND NOW THEY JUST AREN’T PUMPING HIM UP ANYMORE:

DNC, RNC RATINGS UP: The Democrats’ gathering in Chicago drew slightly more viewers than the GOP assembly in Milwaukee this year, but Axios shows the Nielsen ratings back to 2008. The highest rated year for each party’s national convention? You will very likely be surprised by one, but not the other.

THE MESSAGE OF DEMOCRATS’ CORRUPTION SPREADS:

It helps that it’s the truth, of course.

LIFE IN 2024:

HOW ABOUT THAT?

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY, CHAIRMAN XI: Chinese Weakness is the Real “China Shock:” It has been over a year-and-half since the end of “Covid Zero” restrictions, but domestic demand is still so weak that production is only holding up thanks to exports (dumping?)

The Chinese government’s management of the economic consequences of the pandemic was uniquely bad. Its policy errors compounded longstanding structural issues in the distribution of income, harming not just the Chinese people, but workers in the rest of the world.

And yet our ruling class still sees China as a model. Then again our ruling class, like China’s, doesn’t prioritize the well-being of its citizens.