DO YOU GUYS REALLY WANT A WAR? REALLY? Columbia anti-Israel activists call on followers to ‘fight and escalate’ following announcement of Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
If you really want to “globalize the intifada,” you need to be ready for airstrikes wherever you are.
2 MINUTES UNTIL THE LIKELY SUPREME COURT RULING ON TIKTOK. Whatever they decide, and whatever you may think of TikTok, setting the deadline at January 19 was a ridiculous stunt. If the national security concerns were so profound and obvious that they warrant banning a whole platform, they’d be just as obvious on January 21.
UPDATE: The decision is out. The Court upheld the ban, but they don’t seem all that happy about it.
If law professors are now to be punished for obvious errors of analysis, well . . . . And it turns out that Professor Shugerman is not above reproach here.
HEADS, YOU LOSE; TAILS, YOU LOSE: Walgreens CEO reveals anti-theft measures of locking up products had the opposite effect.
Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Tim Wentworth conceded that locking up products in order to combat retail theft had a negative impact on stores.
During an earnings call on Friday, executives reported a 52% increase in “shrink,” or a loss of inventory that can’t be accounted for through sales. The increase in loss of inventory comes after the pharmacy giant’s efforts to crackdown on shoplifting, which Wentworth suggested may have actually backfired.
“When you lock things up… you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively,” Wentworth said.
It doesn’t seem to have slowed the shoplifting, either.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Starship Flight Test 7: Now That Was One Spectacular Failure. “Doesn’t change the likely date at which Mars becomes self-sufficient.”
THERE’S STILL PLENTY OF BIDENFLATION BAKED INTO THE SYSTEM: Mortgage Rates Shoot Up to 7%, the Highest Rate Since May. “The 30-year fixed mortgage was 7.04% in the week ending January 16. It was the fifth consecutive week of rate hikes and the highest level since May.”
THIS IS CNN: ‘Your Credibility with Me is about None’: CNN Trial Goes From Bad to Worse.
In following the defamation trial against CNN by veteran Zachary Young, we have previously (here, here, and here) marveled at how bad things were going for the network. It appears that they are getting even worse. This has been a brutal week as CNN figures, including host Jake Tapper, took the stand. If “this is CNN,” the judge (and possibly the jury) are not liking what they are seeing.The report at the heart of the case aired on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Nov. 11, 2021, and was shared on social media and (a different version on) CNN’s website. In the segment, Tapper told his audience ominously how CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt discovered that “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.”
Marquardt piled on in the segment, claiming that “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and need to pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts” to flee the country. He then named Young and his company as an example of that startling claim.The evidence included messages from Marquardt that he wanted to “nail this Zachary Young mf**ker” and thought the story would be Young’s “funeral.” After promising to “nail” Young, CNN editor Matthew Philips responded: “gonna hold you to that cowboy!” Likewise, CNN senior editor Fuzz Hogan described Young as “a shit.”As is often done by media, CNN allegedly gave Young only two hours to respond before the story ran. It is a typical ploy of the press to claim that they waited for a response while giving the target the smallest possible window.In this case, Young was able to respond in the short time and Marquardt messaged a colleague, “f**king Young just texted.”In the last week, Tapper was seen on video by the jury and was mocked for claiming under oath that he “doesn’t pay attention to ratings,” a claim that could make him unique as a network host. While Tapper can argue that he was referencing the following of daily numbers, critics hammered him by showing repeated clips where he discussed ratings.However, the most damaging testimony may have come from top producers who told the jurors that they opposed the modest apology given to Young on air. Since Young seemed to do well before the jury, the testimony of senior editor Fuzz Hogan, CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt, CNN producer Michael Conte, CNN’s executive vice president of editorial Virginia Moseley, and CNN supervising producer Michael Callahan undermined any effort to portray the network as seeking to amend a wrong or reduce damage to Young.
From there, believe it or not, things got worse for CNN.
PHYSICAL GRAFFITI:
In Canada the Muslims are upset at some enhanced graffiti. pic.twitter.com/fDHKmTG9Zs
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) January 16, 2025
THEY NEED BETTER SPIES: The CCP Was Expecting a Harris Win. It Didn’t Happen and Trump’s Election is Changing Xi’s GamePlan. “The expectation of Xi Jinping, his top advisors, and PLA generals, was a continuation of a Democratic Party ruling the United States that was consistently cutting defense spending, and pulling back in terms of confrontation with the CCP across the world. Now they’ve got Trump. All bets are off.”
THE ODYSSEY OF THE ICE CREAM SOCIALIST COMES TO ITS CONCLUSION: Biden orders milkshakes in bizarre behind-the-scenes video of final days in White House.
Sir, this is the White House.
President Biden’s staff released a behind-the-scenes video Thursday of the retiring president ordering milkshakes and chatting with staff during his final days as commander in chief.
Biden, 82, was shown asking for the dairy treat twice — in one instance being told he’d have to wait for the blended confection to be prepared.
“I’m going to miss you. I just came down to say hi, and by the way, can you make me a milkshake?” the leader of the free world asked a staffer at the Navy Mess on the floor below the Oval Office.
“Yeah, just give me like five minutes,” the male staffer said.
In another clip, a female Mess employee said to the president: “A chocolate milkshake? You want one? On it, sir!”
Biden, joined by adviser Amos Hochstein, proceeds to walk around the executive grounds with a chocolate syrup-lined ice-cream-sundae glass.
“Honestly Biden aimlessly wandering the halls of the White House slurping a milkshake is pretty much how I thought the last 4 years went,” one X user snarked, summing up the thoughts of many conservatives. “It all tracks.”
It really does, alas:
BREAKING: Fox News cuts to Joe Biden expecting him to speak on the Nashville shooting, instead finds him ranting about eating Jeni’s chocolate chip ice cream.pic.twitter.com/6rJsFL2dAN
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 27, 2023
MAY THEY FACE MANY MORE: Democrats faced an ‘ugly day’ in DC, says Greg Gutfeld.
BRAVE JOURNALISTIC FIREMEN, RUNNING TOWARD A BONFIRE OF THEIR VANITY: WATCH: Jim Acosta Holds Up Jim Acosta Poster While Boasting of Jim Acosta’s Importance.
THE AXIOS OF EVIL:
Step 1 – engage in the largest coverup of a president’s mental condition in the history of the United States https://t.co/wyXkfw9OPI
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) January 17, 2025
Flashback: Axios CEO Beclowns Himself Defending Journalisming.
The best part of this sanctimonious rant is when he uses Qatari-funded Al Jazeera as an exemplar of a media outlet that does real truth-seeking reporting without fear or favor. https://t.co/AIeOH5Ga9W
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) November 25, 2024
LIGHTNING DEAL: AstroAI 47.2″ Ice Scrapers for Car Windshield and Extendable Snow Brush. #CommisssionEarned
BLUE STATE BLUES: California Incinerated Its Insurance Market.
Other disaster-prone states, such as Florida, have major insurance problems, but the causes vary. In California, the cause is tied to our prior-approval system of insurance regulation. Wildfires exacerbate that problem. Climate change might intensify the wildfires. But the issue is California makes it inordinately difficult for insurers to price their policies accordingly. Price controls always lead to shortages. Instead of risking their financial health, insurers quietly leave.
Our controls came in 1988 when voters approved Proposition 103. It made the insurance commissioner an elected official. Elected officials have a political incentive not to raise rates for obvious reasons. It instituted a prior-approval system (similar systems exist in 12 states), whereby the commissioner must approve any rate increases. It created a Byzantine rate-review process that’s costly and time-consuming. It gave consumer attorneys (“intervenors”) standing to oppose rate hikes. It even rolled back rates.
The state can enact reforms within the Prop. 103 framework (mainly through expediting the rate-review process and allowing use of those catastrophe models), but it won’t have a healthy insurance market until it ditches price controls. To make matters worse, the state’s FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) Plan is in deep trouble, as increasing numbers of property owners rely on this bare-bones state-created insurer of last resort. If that fails, what exactly will people do?
Leave.
RUY TEIXEIRA: The Sad Tale of Moderate Joe Biden — he blew it.
Joe Biden, by and large, did not participate in this race to the left. Instead, he took advantage of both his primary opponents’ radical ideas and the chaos of Trump’s governance by striking a moderate note, promising to pursue progressive but sensible policies, restore the “soul of America,” provide the help Americans needed to get through the crisis, and, of course and above all, beat Donald Trump. This was a congenial message to the Democratic primary electorate, starting with black voters in South Carolina on February 29 and running through every demographic on Super Tuesday and beyond. It turned out that, despite the strenuous appeals of many candidates to the party’s rising left, most Democratic primary voters had more pragmatic and moderate views than the media-anointed advocates for a more radical party. Other candidates’ failure to understand this emptied the field for Biden, who cruised to the nomination after Super Tuesday.
Then a funny thing happened which was a “tell” on whether Biden intended to govern—as opposed to run—as a moderate. Usually, candidates attempt to move toward the center in preparation for a general-election campaign. But Biden did the reverse. He formed six “unity task forces” jointly coordinated by Biden and Bernie Sanders campaign figures, covering climate change, criminal-justice reform, the economy, education, health care, and immigration. The co-chairs included such lions of the left as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal, then-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the task forces themselves were well stocked with Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) supporters. The task forces produced a blizzard of positions and language considerably to the left of the “moderate, normie” politics upon which Biden had built his successful campaign. And these positions and language found their way into the Democratic Party platform, were incorporated into Biden’s campaign promises and, importantly, determined how the Biden administration made staffing and policy decisions. Despite Biden and his team’s initial insistence that the strenuous leftism found on Twitter wasn’t real life, by the end of the campaign they seemed to be quite happy to act as though it was.
Sure enough, once the Biden administration was up and running, moderation was conspicuous by its absence. First, there were the executive orders that, among other things, dramatically loosened the rules for dealing with illegal immigrants (pleasing progressive immigration advocacy groups), cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline and paused oil and gas leasing on Federal lands (pleasing progressive climate groups) and instituted a sweeping, government-wide effort to promote “equity” (pleasing the congeries of progressive identity-focused groups). He also signaled his support for transgender activists by appointing a transwoman, Rachel “gender-affirming care is settled science” Levine, as Assistant Secretary for Health and de facto administration spokesperson on transgender issues. And Biden repeatedly referred to transgender equality as “the civil rights issue of our time.”
None of this suggested a moderate approach targeted to the bulk of voters who had put him in office but rather one focused on pleasing the progressive wing of his party. The ordinary voters that supported Biden had bought the image of moderate “Scranton Joe” who would restore normality to the country after the stormy Trump years and the double whammy of a pandemic and subsequent economic crash. They were not really looking for a “transformational” president.
Given the worldview of the DNC-MSM, the media would never complain about Biden feigning right on the campaign trail and then governing far to the left of his campaign promises. This has been the frequent approach of Democrat presidents all the way back to FDR on the stump in 1932. We know that by 2024 Biden was simply a husk of a man, but his mental and physical decline was dramatically apparent even while he was campaigning during the 2020 election cycle.
How much was Biden simply a puppet and a teleprompter reader right from the start of his presidency with little or no input on the decisions of the administration that bears his name? Who was actually making the decisions? And how did the DNC-MSM maintain such media discipline until it no longer needed to?
THERE’S (ALMOST) A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN: FBI Shuts Down DEI Office Before Trump’s Inauguration.
IT’S AS IF THIS WAS THE PLAN ALL ALONG: SUBSIDIZE GREEN GROUPS TO WRECK AN ECONOMY, THEN BUY IT OUT ON THE CHEAP. Climate Cult Update: China Begins to Sniff Around the Bones of Germany’s Empty Factories.
KAROL MARKOWICZ: How I became a gun person.
IT’S GOOD TO BE SNUBBED BY THE RIGHT PEOPLE: Trump team ‘having a good laugh’ over Michelle Obama’s ‘deliberate’ decision to skip inauguration: ‘Didn’t expect her to come anyway’.
IT’S GREENLAND’S CALL: Denmark’s PM Just Provided an Update About the US Purchasing Greenland.
THE CONSTITUTION STILL TRUMPS AGENCY REGS? UNBELIEVABLE! This Gun Store Owner Just Forced the ATF to Reverse an Anti-Gun ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy.
THEY’VE GOT NO STRINGS ON HIM: Democrats Are Terrified of Kash Patel Leading the FBI. Perhaps They Should Be.
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