Archive for 2024

July 20, 2024

MATT MARGOLIS: It Looks Like Kamala’s Call with Democrat Donors Was a Disaster.

According to the New York Times, the call included roughly 300 donors, and “several listeners said they found the meeting overall to be of little value and even, at times, condescending, believing that the message ignored donors’ legitimate concerns about the Biden-led ticket.”

Kamala Harris reportedly spoke for just over five minutes via video, focused on criticizing Donald Trump for his convention speech, and tried to link him to Project 2025. She only briefly mentioned Joe Biden but did not take questions. Harris emphasized that Trump’s speech was a distraction from his record and the significance of the election. While some listeners found her delivery strong, it did little to reassure them.

In fact, some seemed to find the entire call insulting.

After the call, one group that had promoted it in advance apologized to its members for having done so.

“Not surprisingly, there was no news generated on this call, and instead, it was a pitch for donors to continue to invest in groups on the ground who are working to defeat Donald Trump,” read an email from Corridor Partners, which advises donors focused on climate issues. “The vice president spoke very briefly and encouraged us all to keep working hard to win in November.”

The email, which was viewed by The New York Times, added, “The call was not productive, and we wanted to apologize to each of you who joined for sharing that invitation.”

But the Washingtonian is assuring their leftist readers that the transition from Biden to Harris will be surprisingly seamless: Kamala Harris Takes Over Biden’s Favorite Activity: Eating Ice Cream. The VP made a visit to Tyra Banks’s new pop-up in Woodley Park.

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 20th, 2024

BUZZ ALDRIN:

The New York Times’ headline the next day:

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 20th, 2024

MAUREEN DOWD: Lord Almighty, Joe, Let It Go!

Everyone wants Joe Biden gone.

Even the people who don’t want him gone really want him gone.

“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” said one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”

I have many happy memories of Rehoboth Beach. I went there growing up and have Proustian recollections of crispy French fries with vinegar sold on the Boardwalk. But now my gladdening images have been replaced by a maddening one: President Biden hunkered down in his house there, recovering from Covid, resisting talking to anyone who will tell him the truth, hoarsely yelling, “Get off my beach!” at the growing list of Democratic lawmakers and donors trying to warn him that he is pulling down his party and the country.

It makes me sad that Biden doesn’t see what’s inescapable: If he doesn’t walk away gracefully right now, he will likely go down as a pariah and ruin his legacy.

Translation: Look Joe, a generation of college historians and Democratic Party operatives with bylines turned Harry Truman’s reputation around and taught that he was a tenacious working class hero, despite his leaving office with a 22% job approval rating. And then, according to a 2021 article in New York magazine by law professor and journalist Paul Campos, “Truman was a very rich man on the day he left the White House, and he became a good deal richer in the five and a half years between that day and the passage of the [Former Presidents Act,”] which as Jeff Jacoby writes, “Truman lied shamelessly and repeatedly about the state of his finances in order to guilt-trip Congress into passing.”

If we can puff up Truman’s reputation so much to make him a worthy successor to FDR (and collectively memory hole his seamier side as well), don’t think we won’t do the reverse to yours in the next decades if you stay in and the Bad Orange Man wins in November.

On the other hand, Dowd writes:

As for those D.C. careerists surrounding Biden who a) hid his true condition; b) gaslighted the press for focusing on what they called a nonexistent age issue; c) shielded the president from the truth about his cratering chances of winning; and d) seem to have put their self-interest first?

One way or the other, they’ll probably be out of their jobs soon.

Well, until the next Democratic president takes office, and they all get jobs in his administration, as so many Obama retreads did under the current (p)resident. But left unsaid by Dowd is how did all of the “investigative reporters” at her paper either spend four years being so incurious about Biden’s obviously deteriorating condition or unwilling to report it?

Of course, that answer is obvious: the Times’ business model requires cosseting their overwhelming leftist readers, and not giving them any bad news that would cause subscriptions to drop. Or as David Harsanyi wrote earlier this month, “If You Were Duped On Biden’s Cognitive Decline, You’re Too Dumb To Be A Journalist,” which is true — but Biden’s former stenographers need some excuse to explain to their readers their latest 180 pivot.

Kudos to Dowd for at least bucking that trend, despite being an opinion columnist, regarding Joe’s shameful treatment of his granddaughter. Or at Mediaite noted last year: Critics Attack The New York Times for Daring to Do Journalism on the Biden Granddaughter Story.

UPDATE: NY Times Seems to Hope Everybody’s Forgotten About the ‘Cheap Fakes’ Cover Dems/Media Ran for Biden.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 20th, 2024

CROWDSTRIKE UPDATE: Now trains are hit in Crowdstrike outage as ticket machines and scanners go down at London stations on one of year’s busiest travel days – while families queue at Dover and 28,000 Brits battle to fly home with another 45 UK flights axed today.

Fears for patients as Crowdstrike chaos pharmacy backlogs set to continue.

Russia Thanks Western Sanctions for Helping It Avoid The Crowdstrike IT Outage. Heh.

Crowdstrike’s Terms and Conditions Say Most Customers Would Just Get A Refund Despite Massive Damage.

Crowdstrike Failure Highlights the Fragility of Globally Connected Technology.

What Happened to Digital Resilience? “In the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration has quietly simulated over the past year or so, Russian hackers working on behalf of Vladimir V. Putin bring down hospital systems across the United States. In others, China’s military hackers trigger chaos, shutting down water systems and electric grids to distract Americans from an invasion of Taiwan. As it turned out, none of those grim situations caused Friday’s national digital meltdown.” Instead, in the words of Joseph Story, we were “victims of our own imbecility.”

Posted at 9:00 am by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 20th, 2024

OUCH:

Posted at 8:16 am by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 20th, 2024

LOL:

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