Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
May 16, 2023
THIS IS THE WAY: Florida Bill Would Crack Down on ‘Woke’ Finance Company Morningstar for Actions That Harm Israel.
Florida could soon prohibit state funds from investing in companies that work in any way to undermine Israel, a move that would simultaneously hurt “woke” investment strategies and anti-Semitic boycotts.
The legislature this month approved a bipartisan bill that would bar the state from doing business with companies “taking adverse action, including changes to published commercial financial ratings … to inflict economic harm on Israel.” The bill, which hit Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s (R.) desk on Tuesday, aims to crack down on companies that work to hurt Israeli businesses under the guise of progressive Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) guidelines.
Chief among those companies is the financial ratings giant Morningstar, which has been plagued by accusations that it systematically downgrades companies that work with Israel—a move that generally discourages investors from funding companies. Morningstar subsidiary Sustainalytics, for instance, blacklists several companies that work with Israel to stop terrorism. Critics say this activity feeds the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as it seeks to economically isolate Israel.
Flashback: Morningstar’s Sustainalytics dashboard is ‘dead to rights BDS.’
GOT WOKE, WENT BROKE: Anti-Capitalist Cafe Closes After 1-year, Shocking No One.
[Gabriel] Sims-Fewer then offered a fitting send-off at the end of the statement. One that makes it seem like the only people in Toronto angrier than Maple Leafs fans are the city’s anarchists.
“F–k the rich. F–k the police. F–k the state. F–k the colonial death camp we call ‘Canada.’”
Do you mean to tell me people weren’t lining up to patronize this dude’s shop?! WHAT?!
But fear not anarchists living in Canada’s most expensive city. He says he’ll be back with new ventures that are likely just as doomed to fail as the coffee joint.
It’s too bad Portlandia went off the air — their stories would be writing themselves in 2023.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Media Admits They Lied About That Russia Collusion Thing But Are Totally Telling The Truth About Everything Else.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL: She offered a LGBTQ-themed book to her middle schoolers. Parents filed a police report. “The notion that I was putting children in danger because of books … I knew I couldn’t go back.”
Related:
Florida 5th grade teacher who showed students an LGBT-themed Disney movie: "Ignorant" of parents to complain.
Your "rights as a parent, those rights are gone when your child is in the public school system" pic.twitter.com/YkJbaPQOPk
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 16, 2023
JADA PINKETT SMITH — A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER! Queen Cleopatra – The Most Hated Show Of All Time?
THE ULTIMATE OBAMA-ERA RETREAD: It sure looks like Michelle Obama is being pressured to run for president, forcing Biden out of the 2024 race.
OUT ON A LIMB: Kamala Harris Is the Reason Biden Is Running.
Apparently, “Biden 2024” was not the original plan; passing the torch to Harris was apparently the plan. And now, that plan is unworkable.
Back in March, some unnamed White House official told Reuters’ Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose that Biden “is also convinced that neither Harris nor any other Democratic hopefuls would be able to beat former President Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee.”
That’s a reasonable fear. Pollsters don’t ask about a hypothetical Trump vs. Harris matchup very often, but when they do, Trump is often ahead by a surprisingly comfortable margin. Although it’s also worth noting that right now, Harris’s job-approval rating in the FiveThirtyEight average is only three points below Biden’s. Maybe Biden likes having Harris around as a scapegoat for his own lousy numbers.
Flashback to America’s Newspaper Of Record: Kamala Disappointed To Learn President In Hospice Is Just Carter.
ROGER KIMBALL: John Durham exposes the whole anti-Trump caper.
The moral is that democracy is all well and good, but only so long as the voters select a candidate we approve of. Somehow, Donald Trump was elected without the permission — indeed, over the strenuous objections — of the permanent bureaucracy. The whole Trump-Russia narrative was concocted to correct that mistake.
At the end of the day, the Durham report contains few real revelations. Anyone who has been paying attention already knew most of what he details. But it does dot some I’s and cross some T’s. And what will happen now? People will pore over the the report and shake their heads and cluck their tongues. James Comey will be busy cashing his royalty checks and nattering on about his “higher loyalty.” Barack Obama will continue to enjoy his palatial residence on Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps Joe Biden will be pushed into an adult nursery somewhere so that Michelle Obama can continue the legacy.
Will “those responsible” be “held accountable?” If you think the answer is yes, then I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.
Related: Majority see FBI as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after Trump raid.
More:
The ghost of Walter Duranty flashes a Pinch of a smile.
THE STORY OF THE PONTIAC BANSHEE: Was It the Poor Man’s Vette?
Yes — and it’s apparently Iowahawk approved:
Nope, not a Corvette – my pal Joe Bortz's 1964 Pontiac Banshee GM concept car. He has 2 of 'em. pic.twitter.com/hV3BfNMHz7
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 30, 2015
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: The battle against fascism in Florida: Lessons on how to beat back authoritarianism from abroad.
—Salon, Sunday.
● Chaser: Florida, Fastest-Growing State for First Time Since 1957.
—Census.gov, December 22nd.
● Hangover: The many, many times that Salon wished for some awfully fascistic outcomes themselves.
—Instapundit, August 15, 2021.
● The D.T.s: “‘I’m a little disappointed your governor said I wasn’t welcome in Illinois,’ DeSantis said in response to remarks made by [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker ahead of his arrival. ‘Because I seem to remember when he was locking down this state, he sent his family to live in my state and live in our freedom.’”
—The Peoria Journal-Star, Saturday.
May 15, 2023
HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Las Vegas judge sentences speeding woman on cocaine who killed drunk driver high on meth.
WITH DNC IN MIND, CITY BANS CARRYING URINE, FECES: Feminist Miller Lite video resurfaces amid Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light controversy.
A months-old Miller Lite video with a feminist message is going viral as Bud Light continues to hurt from the fallout it received from its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light have been subject to a crusade from figures on the Right who have led a financially crippling boycott of the iconic beer brand since Mulvaney, dressed as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, appeared with a custom Bud Light can on April 1.
Titled “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T,” the video announces an initiative from Miller Lite to transform previous sexist beer advertising into fertilizer that female brewers will use to grow hops.
Comedian Ilana Glazer features in the video, which debuted for Women’s History Month, and opens up about how Miller Lite is on a mission to make up for beer not always doing “right by women.”
“Here’s a little-known fact, women were among the very first to brew beer ever. From Mesopotamia to the Middle Ages to Colonial America, women were the ones doing the brewing,” Glazer informs the public. “Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis.”
As the video continues, Glazer walks through a room of beer ads featuring scantly clad women and declares all the material “s***.”
As James Lileks memorably wrote in early Screedblog, “If art contains shit, we should take it at its word.” The same holds true with commercials — especially about light beer.
(Classical reference in headline.)
GET WELL SOON: Where The Hell Has The Lid Been?
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! So now Joe Biden wants to split off Great Britain as an ally?
This weekend, we learned our latest lesson about what happens when Joe Biden’s handlers allow him to off of the script. Like me, you may have thought that Biden’s recent trip to Ireland was just a free vacation on the taxpayer’s dime so he could look at castles. But according to recent comments Biden made at a fundraiser, he was studying the political situation in Great Britain and particularly in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where relations have been strained amid post-Brexit trade discussions. Amazingly, he told people at the fundraiser that he had been over there “making sure the Brits didn’t screw around and Northern Ireland didn’t walk away from their commitments.” Needless to say, when officials in Great Britain heard about this, many of them were simply aghast.
Well, let’s face it, the Brits are okay, I guess, but they’re no Islamic Republic of Iran: Biden Plans to Continue Iran Deal Talks Despite Regime’s Brutal Crackdown.
MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS: Psychologist Breaks Down How Society Descended Into COVID Insanity.
[Belgian clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet] went on to explain that, having met this first condition, the population is afflicted with what he calls “free-floating” anxiety and aggression, by which he means anxiety that does not have a clearly identifiable source. There is nothing in the environment to attach the anxiety to and therefore no obvious solution to remedy it.
That’s when demagogues with a narrative to push — who, in the context of COVID in the West, also happened to enjoy an iron-clad grip on the corporate media — seize on this anxiety to present those suffering with something, or someone, to blame. Those people then seize on the opportunity to, they hope, soothe their anxiety by neutralizing the enemy — which, in this case, was both the virus itself (which justified lockdowns and vax mandates) and anyone who resisted the lockdowns — their fellow countrymen.
The COVIDians found community — something they longed for but had not found in their meaningless jobs or on Twitter or wherever they had been looking — in banding together to defeat the unvaccinated. In this way, otherwise rational human beings — particularly liberal women, who are statistically the most negatively affected by the modern techno-dystopia — are turned into vicious, rabid animals willing to condone the most inhumane treatment of their enemies, weaponized cynically by the social engineers as they are unleashed on the public.
And the result was this:
https://twitter.com/wakeupfromcovid/status/1458474280472047617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1458474280472047617%7Ctwgr%5E911a935e61f7155b61a8ae4a7c3443d42bc1547d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fnews-and-politics%2Fbenbartee%2F2023%2F05%2F13%2Fpsychologist-breaks-down-how-society-descended-into-covid-insanity-n1695174
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EVERGREEN QUESTION: Dave Chapelle Slams San Francisco: ‘What The F— Happened To This Place?’
In a surprise performance Thursday at San Francisco’s Masonic Auditorium, the comedian offered his thoughts on the state of the City by the Bay.
And they were not good.
“What the f-ck happened to this place?” Chapelle asked the crowd.
He ripped into the city for its homeless crisis. Chapelle said he went to an Indian restaurant a few nights earlier and watched a man defecate right in front of the restaurant.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin District has long been notorious for homelessness and drug use. But according to Chapelle, the entire city is now the Tenderloin.
San Francisco has become “half ‘Glee,’ half zombie movie,” he said.
“Y’all [N-words] need a Batman!”
Good luck with that. In the meantime: San Francisco Chaos Proves It: Law and Order Is a Public Good.
AND THEY’RE NOT WRONG: Democrats’ Nightmares–African Americans See Racism in Democrat Attacks on Clarence Thomas.
BIDEN CALLS ‘WHITE SUPREMACY’ THE ‘MOST DANGEROUS TERRORIST THREAT’ IN SPEECH AT BLACK COLLEGE:
Joe Biden is a born political panderer. It’s how he won the Democratic Party nomination, and it played a large role in his victory over Donald Trump.
Telling people what they want to hear is a political skill that most politicians possess. But there may never have been a politician as adept and skilled as Joe Biden in pandering to voters based on their race, their gender, their sexual identity, or any other aspect of their personhood that can be sliced, diced, and pureed to create a message tailor-made for a particular Democratic constituency.
Biden gave the commencement address to the historically black college of Howard University on Saturday and turned on the pander up to “10” in his bid to win over his audience.
Biden discussed racism and said that hatred “never goes away” and only “hides under the rocks.” “A vivid demonstration when it comes to race in America, hope doesn’t travel alone. It’s shadowed by fear, by violence, and by hate,” he said.
And “unexpectedly” right on cue! Feds on Parade: Hundreds of ‘Patriot Front’ Members March in Khakis and Masks Towards U.S. Capitol (video).
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Meet your new virtual girlfriend.
There weren’t many details provided in the FAQ section of the clone’s website. But in case you think I’m painting an unfairly salacious picture of this project, it says, “Your Virtual Girlfriend” right at the top of the page. So what are we to assume that means exactly? There’s a difference between “curing loneliness” and some of the other activities people might expect to engage in with their “girlfriend.” (A request for comment was not immediately returned today.)
How “real” would this “girlfriend” experience be? When a Wall Street Journal columnist recently created a clone of herself, the result was pretty good and even seemed realistic enough to fool someone for a short time. But any conversations that became complex caused the fakery to be fairly obvious in a short time.
On the one hand, this looks like one of the least dangerous applications of AI to show up recently, at least in terms of robots taking over the world. But at the same time, perhaps it’s just me but this looks kind of sad and potentially dangerous in another way. Are people going to get so caught up in a “relationship” with this clone that they begin cutting themselves off from the real world? And when the realization sets in that the relationship is never going to be “consummated” (to put it politely), might the person’s loneliness and even depression become even worse?
Related: Glenn’s recent Substack essay: AI and the Screwfly Succession: What if love really does conquer all?