THAT’S FUNNY, BUT NOT REALLY:
Between the United States and Russia, one country just arbitrarily seized the assets of an oligarch opposed to the regime, and is trying to jail him
The other country is Russia
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) February 16, 2024
Story: Trump and associates ordered to pay $364 million in civil business fraud case.
DEVASTATING: Key Excerpts From Tony Bobulinski’s Testimony.
STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: AAA: Reverse Automatic Emergency Braking Systems Don’t Work Well Enough.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Uruguay signs Artemis Accords. “Uruguay is the 36th country to sign the Accords, established in 2020, and the second in as many weeks after Greece signed the documents Feb. 9. The signatories range from countries with advanced space programs to those like Uruguay that are only starting to develop space capabilities.”
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: The Naked Truth About Super Bowl Betting. “This week we have the Super Bowl crime that almost paid for itself, why the YouTube upload button is not your friend, and the Colorado Man who really shouldn’t have called the police.”
BE PREPARED: Weidahh Reusable Full Face Gas Respirator Mask. #CommissionEarned
AGAINST “SCHOLAR-ACTIVISM.” Not everything has to be about “advancing democracy” all the time, nor should doing so be an excuse for not rigorously pursuing the truth.
NO ONE CAN AFFORD TO BUY, NO ONE CAN AFFORD TO SELL: First-time buyers ‘rate-locked’ out of housing market.
This won’t help: US homebuilding sees biggest drop since April 2020.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Frank J. Fleming’s Guide to Being a Texan.
THE PARTY TOLD YOU TO REJECT THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR EYES AND EARS. IT WAS THEIR FINAL, MOST ESSENTIAL COMMAND:
The administration, with journalists in tow, is playing the Looney Tunes dancing frog act — that to them and only them, behind closed doors, away from cameras and the voting public, Biden is not the president we see regularly confuse world leaders, forget where to walk off a stage, lose concentration mid-sentence and refuse to hold live interviews or unscripted press conferences. They are telling 86 percent of the country (according to a recent ABC News poll on Biden’s fitness for a second term) not to believe their eyes and ears.
When Biden’s White House attorneys were asked if they would demand a transcript release to refute the special counsel’s generalizations, they were non-committal. The White House has not pledged to support the release of audio recordings of the sessions, which could go a long way in refuting the final report’s assessment of Biden. At every step, this administration and a lockstep media pushing its message has refused any access to the president himself, so Biden can make the case for his own mental and cognitive fitness.
If Joe Biden cannot make his own case to the American people that he will serve a second term to its fulfillment and not resign halfway due to his advanced age and health, thrusting an unpopular President Kamala Harris onto the country, then we should not allow anyone in our media or this White House to make the case for him.
Related: Puck’s Dylan Byers: White House Reporters Knew About Biden All Along.
Of late, we hear plenty from the news industry about a “crisis” for democracy as their platforms downsize or fail. They are a necessity for a well-informed republic, media professionals insist, But how can they make that argument while at the same time refusing to actually inform the public, especially about a critical failure at the head of government and state? I don’t doubt for a moment what Byers reports as the excuses from the White House press cohort, but excuses are precisely what they are.
What is “sensitive and unseemly” about reporting a cognitive incapacitation of a sitting US president? This isn’t about an affair; it’s not a private issue in any way under these circumstances. The incapacitation of a president or governor is not a matter of “delicacy,” either.
Byers lands on one of the real issues in this passage. The reporters knew that to inform the public that Biden had begun sliding into senility would mean that the White House wouldn’t treat them favorably. And that’s what they really value — not protecting democracy and “speaking truth to power,” but pandering to it for the perqs. This is a real-life recreation of the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes, with the White House press corps playing the role of the obsequious courtiers.
The old joke that DC is Hollywood for Ugly People descends all the way down to both cities’ chattering classes. For decades, Hollywood knew that even its worst big-budget films would be propped by good reviews from local city film “critics.” They were desperate not to be tossed off the gravy train where they got to interview the stars and receive screeners, press kits, and other baubles from Tinseltown, no matter how badly executives such as Harvey Weinstein and their entourage treated them.
Political “reporters,” having clawed their up the greasy pole to make it to covering the White House, are similarly afraid of losing their status as insiders – no matter how badly Joe Biden and his handlers treat them.
Related:
How someone reacts to the Fani Willis testimony yesterday is a litmus test for if they're a complete partisan hack.
Anyone who denies that she clearly lied, could not respond to basic questions, acted inappropriately, and corrupted this prosecution is a mindless Dem partisan. https://t.co/jG3jUZcjub
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 16, 2024
THERE’S BEEN ENTIRELY TOO MUCH DEATH THIS YEAR: Medical Emergency Pascals.
These are friends, both younger than us. They moved so one of them could quit and write, and then…. well, this.
Some of you might have bumped into her at the Ann Althouse blog and others. She goes by Synova, and she does delightful little drawings I sometimes share. Like this one. (This link goes to her blog) Again, they’re younger than us, and this came completely out of the blue. There’s been a lot of it this year. If you can’t help, (and I think this year we all get that) please pray for them if you’re a praying kind.
21ST CENTURY MEDICINE: Magnetically operated robot can move through arteries to treat stroke patients.
A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: SF brings back 8th-grade algebra, admits ‘equity math’ failed.
For years, San Francisco Unified claimed “equity math” was improving minority students’ success rates. The first draft of California’s new math framework cited San Francisco’s successful math reforms as its model. The final version eliminated the call to delay algebra till ninth grade.
Now, the district admits that algebra for none was a flop.
As critics had predicted, forcing students to wait till ninth grade to take algebra has reduced the number of students taking higher-level math courses in high school. Not everyone can go to summer school or take private courses to get on the algebra-to-calculus STEM track.
“For years.”
TUCKER CARLSON DISCOVERS AMERICAN TOURISTS ARE RICH:
After checking out, Carlson is floored by grocery prices in Russia. He said in the video that a cart of groceries that he thought would cost $400 actually cost $104.
Americans will frequently be impressed by how far their money goes in foreign countries. It’s expensive to travel abroad, but once you actually get there, a lot of stuff seems really cheap. That’s because American tourists benefit from a strong dollar, and they have high incomes by global standards. It doesn’t really tell you much about the quality of life for people who live in the foreign country.
That’s especially true the past few years. In 2022, the dollar was trading at 20-year highs relative to other currencies. It’s down slightly from that today, but it is still very strong.
The reason for this is largely higher interest rates. When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, it increases the returns for Treasury securities. The higher returns mean more foreigners want to buy Treasury securities. But Treasury securities are sold in dollars, so foreigners demand more dollars to buy them. That raises the “price” of the dollar on international exchange markets, giving Americans more purchasing power abroad.
* * * * * * * *
Russia must be loving these videos that Carlson keeps putting out. But his amazement at the prices of Russian groceries doesn’t demonstrate Russia is doing something great. It demonstrates that Americans in foreign countries are rich.
Why don’t more Americans move to foreign countries then? First, most jobs that pay American incomes do not allow people to live in foreign countries. (For the few jobs that do allow it, some Americans have moved to Mexico City, for example, where they can buy very nice houses at Mexican prices.)
Second, most people know that what they might see on vacation is probably not representative of everyday life. And it’s just not worth it to most people to uproot their lives and live in a country that speaks a different language, uses a different alphabet, has high rates of alcoholism and suicide, lacks democratic institutions, persecutes religious minorities, and is waging a genocidal war on its neighbor — even if their income would land them in the upper class.
Tucker (who used to know better) is suffering from a case of Omnipotent Tourist Syndrome in Cyrillic:
The Omnipotent Tourist Syndrome is a disease common among Americans that is caused by arrogance, egotism and nonchalance. Carriers show a penchant for obliviously overlooking the obvious while delighting themselves at the cost of others. Delirious OTS sufferers refuse to acknowledge their malady and will argue that it is their God given right as an American to travel freely about the world with little or no conscience or consequence. OTS people frequently hide behind their Bill of Rights and Constitution. Unfortunately, there is no cure for OTS nor is there any way to ease it’s symptoms. It is a disease which, no matter how much hard data and facts are introduced into the OTS sufferer, will not ease unless said sufferer finds a compass of morality and humanity.
Flashback: When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Houston:
It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.
At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location.
Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”
Related: The Full Duranty.
TO BE FAIR, THAT’S WHAT THEY SEE AS THEIR JOB: The Media Is Covering Up Key Facts About the Lakewood Church Shooter’s Motivations.
