MADE IN THE USA: Abba Patio Patio Umbrella Outdoor Umbrella. #CommissionEarned
Archive for 2024
July 4, 2024
THREAD:
Newspapers are where universities were 10-15 years ago. An old guard of liberal institutionalists remains — people who know that. like universities, newspapers exist to report the truth no matter who it hurts.
— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) July 3, 2024
HEY, EDITH WILSON DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A DISSERTATION: Madam President’s Midwit Manifesto: Reviewing the dissertation of the woman (probably) running the country.
OLD AND BUSTED: “To say that the press brought down Nixon, that’s horseshit.”
—The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, 2004.
The New Hotness? WaPo Editorial Board Took the Liberty of Writing Biden’s Drop Out Speech (Not That She’ll Allow It).
—Twitchy, today.
Democracy dies in some serious gaslighting:
Four years ago, the pandemic was raging. More than 10 million Americans were out of work. Many businesses and schools were closed. People were exhausted by Mr. Trump’s chaos. Today, our economy is the envy of the world, thanks to 15 million new jobs, extraordinarily low unemployment and a start-up boom. Record numbers of Americans have health insurance, and we have made historic investments in our infrastructure and in the fight against climate change. Our allies respect us again, as we have rallied the free world against Russian aggression.
What exactly would Biden have done differently? In 2021 the White House Christmas message to unvaccinated was: You’re looking at a winter of death for yourselves and your families, with then-President Klain tweeting:
Back then, Clay Travis asked if Biden would follow his own advice:
Belatedly, the Post is answering that question for Biden.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX completes Satrlink launch, brings Direct to Cell satellite total to 103.
SKYNET SMILES: It’s Time For The Biden Campaign To Embrace AI.
The stakes of the 2024 presidential election cannot be overstated. With Donald Trump promising to act as a dictator “on day one,” it is not hyperbolic to say the future of American democracy hangs in the balance. Against this backdrop, the Biden campaign faces a critical challenge: conveying a strong and effective image of President Joe Biden to a population and media ecosystem increasingly focused on optics over substance. Given the president’s concerning performance last week, it’s time for the Biden campaign to consider leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to effectively reach the voting public.
While of course there are reasonable hesitations to break this dam on the use of modern technology in presidential campaigning, the consequences of not taking this approach could be dire. Moreover, in the currently under-regulated electoral landscape, refusing to use modern tools like AI is akin to entering the boxing ring with one hand tied behind your back.
Joe Biden is old and has had a lifelong stutter*. He acknowledged in a fiery rally following his debate performance: “I might not walk as easily or talk as smoothly as I used to.” This has impeded his ability to communicate with mass audiences with consistent success. AI augmentations and video renderings could serve to smooth out these bumps while allowing the Biden campaign to effectively disseminate true information about the state of our democracy and the Biden administration’s accomplishments. The president has limited time to campaign as he also focuses on running the country, and AI would be a cost-effective and efficient way to communicate his message personally and directly to voters.
Despite an ambitious and widely praised first term in office, he is currently trailing in polls to a man who incited an insurrection and was recently convicted on 34 felony counts. Something needs to change, and much to the chagrin of West Wing fanatics in the beltway, it won’t be the Democrats’ 2024 nominee. Modern technology offers a clear solution. AI can be used to polish how the president comes across, allowing voters to focus on his substance. How many times have we heard voters and pundits alike gripe that “Biden would be the perfect candidate if he were just 10 years younger?” With modern technology, this exact deliverable is possible.
Invariably, the rock band is either dead or far too feeble to perform before its manager or record label sends the holograms on tour in their place, so this piece in the Huffington Post by Kaivan Shroff, a “strategist with experience working for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign,” is an admission that the (p)resident has now fully checked out. It’s also a reminder that the late Andrew Breitbart’s eeeeevil plan for the creation of the HuffPost continues to bear fruit:
I went in with dual purposes. While the Huffington Post in theory served Arianna’s and the left’s goals of creating a battlefront where they could fight their battles, it served my ulterior purpose of creating preparation for talk radio and cable news, where everyone could see what lunacies constituted the thought processes of the richest noblesse oblige liberals in our land, the people who benefit the most from our way of life and yet craft the culture of our land in opposition to that way of life. Frankly, I wanted to put them on display. And, for different reasons, so did Arianna.
* No he hasn’t:
WOULD THEY ANNOUNCE THIS IF THEY WEREN’T EXPECTING IT WOULD NEED TO? Boeing’s Starliner can stay in space beyond 45-day limit, NASA says.
MEANWHILE, IN A PART OF AMERICA THAT STILL WORKS: Astounding Science (Non-)Fiction: Space X Rocket Over San Diego (Breath-Taking Photos).
OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH BRANDON:
Shot: Why Biden must withdraw.
THE PRESIDENTIAL debate was awful for Joe Biden, but the cover-up has been worse. It was agony to watch a befuddled old man struggling to recall words and facts. His inability to land an argument against a weak opponent was dispiriting. But the operation by his campaign to deny what tens of millions of Americans saw with their own eyes is more toxic than either, because its dishonesty provokes contempt.
The effect has been to put the White House within Donald Trump’s grasp. Fresh polls have found that voters in the states Mr Biden must win have moved against him. His lead may be in danger even in once-safe states such as Virginia, Minnesota and New Mexico.
Mr Biden deserves to be remembered for his accomplishments and his decency rather than his decline. So it is right that the first senior Democrats have begun to call openly for him to step aside. However, their public expressions are nothing compared with the building wave of private dismay. More of them urgently need to face up to the fact that if they do not speak out now, Mr Trump will win. In order to bring about the political renewal that America now so clearly needs, they must call for change. It is not too late.
Democrats argue, rightly, that Mr Trump is unfit to be president. But the debate and its aftermath have proved Mr Biden unfit, too. First, because of his mental decline. Mr Biden can still appear dynamic during short, scripted appearances. But you cannot run a superpower by autocue. And you cannot put an international crisis on hold because the president is having a bad night. Should someone who cannot finish a sentence about Medicare be trusted with the nuclear codes?
—The Economist, today.
Chaser:
“Cheap fakes” are the “newest weapon in US politics”, wrote Gary Mason in the Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper. Republicans and the far right have spread these videos, which are manipulated to the point of being “outright lies”, to erode confidence in Mr Biden’s “mental capacity”. “Millions of unsuspecting people” have been “duped”. It’s “the dystopian future predicted in sci-fi movies”, argues Mr Mason.
—The Economist, June 25th.
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Why many illegal fireworks could be gone in California next July Fourth.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Biden Campaign Collapse Tracker: That Narrative Isn’t Going to Change Itself, Joe. “The Biden Cabal controls the DNC and Biden controls the overwhelming majority of delegates for the first vote — which the DNC might hold less than three weeks from now. If somebody is going to try some ‘really futile and stupid gesture’ to steal the nomination, the White House has made sure they won’t have much time to do it.”
READER FAVORITE: COOFANDY Men’s 2 Pack Gym Workout Shorts 7 Inch Quick Dry. #CommissionEarned
AND NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS: Blue Bell is bringing back 2 retired ice cream flavors.
JAWS: You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Theater.
Every summer arrives with at least a half dozen hopeful blockbusters grasping for our dollars, like beggars in designer clothes. And I’m old enough to remember before films presented themselves with such audacity; a time when movie studios assumed that we preferred to spend our summers on vacation, at the cottage or the beach, when the weeks before and after Christmas were when you booked big budget productions in every movie palace and neighbourhood theatre that would show them.
It was a long time ago, and it all ended with a movie about a fish.
But what was happening at the beginning of the summer of 1975 that made us so desperate for distraction? Well, the Watergate trials were finally ending with sentencing and imprisonments, and that episode would get capped with the release of All the President’s Men in theatres a year later, freeing baby boomers to forget Nixon and start thinking about real estate and the stock market. South Vietnam was conquered by North Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, but since Nixon ended the draft two years earlier nobody but veterans seemed to care much, and the “domino theory” was yesterday’s political rhetoric.
When June began, Israel removed its tanks and troops from the Suez Canal, the UK voted to stay in the European Community, the Soviets sent the Venera probes to Venus, Pelé signed with the New York Cosmos, the first crude was pumped from the North Sea oil fields and Sam Giancana was shot before he could testify in front of Congress.
A day later Jaws opened nationwide. It made its budget back two weeks later and by the first week of September it had outgrossed The Godfather, and it would sit at the top of the all-time box office records (unadjusted for inflation) until Star Wars unseated it two years later. The film’s production woes had been in the news for much of the previous year, with stories about malfunctioning mechanical sharks, plus budget and schedule overruns. (A 55 day shoot schedule ballooned into 159 days.) It was presumed that Jaws would tank and probably end the career of its young director, Steven Spielberg – best known for a hit TV movie (Duel) and a modestly successful crime picture (The Sugarland Express) – before it had really begun.
That alternate future died with the film’s opening scene.
Read the whole thing.
Exit quote:
Although as Rick McGinnis writes, “The problem with this meme is that there’s every reason to believe that the Mayor was reelected because everyone did vote in November. I live in Canada, you see…”
THIS SHOULDN’T BE A QUESTION BUT IT IS YET ANOTHER INDICATOR THAT THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH HAS GROWN FAR TOO POWERFUL: Who’s Really Running the Country?
THE NOMENKLATURA TAKE CARE OF THE NOMENKLATURA:
No one is above the law.
Except Democrats… https://t.co/PdldOUCNfE
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 3, 2024
MICKEY KAUS: The Pepcidammerung. “Like many people, I have a problem with acid reflux. I originally took Pepcid for it, then switched to Prilosec. Then I abandoned Prilosec when a well publicized study suggested that long term use (4 years or more) increased your dementia risk by 33%. Yikes! Various attempts were made to debunk the study–see, eg, this Vox piece. And it may be that with millions of people taking Prilosec and millions being diagnosed with cognitive decline, the personality types — i.e. anxious personality types—who’ll get themselves tested for the decline are also the types who’ll take antacids. It beats me–but Vox doesn’t totally knock down the Prilosec/dementia connection. Instead, it urges people to talk with their doctors. When I told my doctor I wanted to quit Prilosec, he didn’t try to argue me out of it. He suggested I switch back to Pepcid. I said, ‘Well, if the President takes it, how bad could it be?'”
HAPPY FOURTH: Shop the 4th of July Sale. #CommissionEarned
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Happy Independence Day, You Whacky Freedom Lovers! “While I don’t mind working on holidays, I do hope that most of you have some quality grilling in your plans today. It’s supposed to be around 106 here in my neck of the Sonoran Desert, so I will be enjoying my classic Independence Day fare via an air fryer while wearing a new t-shirt that says, ‘The British Blew a Thirteen Colony Lead.'”
“ALLIES”: Beijing and Moscow Go From ‘No Limits’ Friendship to Frenemies in Russia’s Backyard.
When Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met on Wednesday in Kazakhstan a day ahead of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional political and security bloc, both sides praised the state of their bilateral ties. Their relationship was “not directed against anyone,” said Putin, according to the Kremlin readout. Chinese state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying that both sides should uphold “the unique value of China-Russia relations” given what he called an “international situation fraught with turbulence.”
But in Central Asia, which Moscow regards as its backyard, the friendship that both have declared as having “no limits” is colliding with Beijing’s global ambitions.
China has seized on the Ukraine invasion to chip away at traditional Russian spheres of influence. In Central Asia, as in the Arctic, Moscow’s reliance on Beijing to sustain its war machine forces it to acquiesce to the encroachments.
Across the strategically situated region, Beijing is drawing local economies into its orbit. Chinese investments are diverting the region’s young workers away from Russia. A Chinese-funded railroad promises to connect it with Europe, bypassing Russian territory. Chinese renewable energy projects are helping reduce its reliance on Russian gas.
Putin chose… poorly.
CALVIN COOLIDGE ON INDEPENDENCE DAY:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Read the whole thing.