“I’ve not done anything wrong.” Why has this become so normal? https://t.co/GKHzIozlRj
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 7, 2023
“The dynamic is basically, ‘You, unlike me, have some self-restraint, which gives me an advantage, therefore I shall test it and see how far I can go.’ It’s the psychology of a child unaccustomed to consequences.”
BREAKING: Tucker Carlson Announces New Platform For His Show.
Former Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson announced Tuesday his show will air exclusively on Twitter from this point forward.
Carlson tweeted a short video breaking the news about where his program will air.
We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023
As Steve noted before today’s announcement: Tucker Laughs While the Bloodbath Continues at Fox News.
UPDATE: Tucker “will forgo at least $25 million owed to him by Fox Corp. in order to break non-compete clause.”
HOW IT STARTED: No one is coming for your gas stove anytime soon.
—The New York Times, January 21st.
How it’s going:
NEW: Today, I’m leading 11 AGs calling for federal action to address the health & safety risks of gas stoves, which emit pollutants that have a disparate negative impact on children & underserved communities and put DC residents at risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
— AG Brian Schwalb (@DCAttorneyGen) May 8, 2023
DEVELOPING: Federal Jury Issues Verdict in Trump Rape and Defamation Case. “A federal jury on Tuesday found former President Donald Trump liable of sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll after she filed a lawsuit accusing him of rape. He was ordered to pay over $5 million in damages. The jury deliberated for only three hours before reaching a decision, which was announced in court shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday. The trial centered around Carroll’s allegations that Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s, and she is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.”
THE TRAILER FOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S OPPENHEIMER DROPPED, AND IT’S EPIC:
Universal Studios released the second full trailer for Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” Monday, making this the must-see movie of the summer.
Cillian Murphy is in the starring role alongside Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer. The movie also stars Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Jack Quaid, Rami Malek and many more. The plot line is riveting, and this epic trailer brings audiences on a gripping ride, thrusting them into pulse-pounding scenes showcasing a man who must risk destroying the entire world in a wild and dangerous attempt to save it.
Let’s hope that Nolan has learned from his 2017 film Dunkirk, which was surprisingly aloof and detached about the heroic events he was depicting.
RIP FRED SIEGEL, 78: An Inspiration to Freethinkers.
Some of us still subscribe to the view that we didn’t leave the Democratic Party; it left us. For such apostates and freethinkers, Fred Siegel was an inspiration and a role model (though I never asked him directly about his party affiliation). His writing was the product of careful observation by one of the best-read people in the world, who was nonetheless unafraid to advocate commonsense propositions: that Rudy Giuliani’s crackdown on crime was a prerequisite to a healthy city for all social classes, and that the liberalism once meant to uplift the poor had now evolved to hold them back—a crucial point of one of his last books, The Revolt Against the Masses. This book, it’s important to note, was not an op-ed-style screed about the Left. It deployed Fred’s deep understanding of American history to link current liberalism with the elitism of earlier generations. He was as upset with Herbert Croly as he was with Nancy Pelosi.
Here’s a link to my 2014 interview with Siegel about The Revolt Against the Masses.
MAKING JORDAN NEELY THE NEW GEORGE FLOYD IS THE NEXT STEP IN THE LEFT’S WAR ON AMERICA:
The prosecution of the ex-Marine will not just establish a precedent that there is a “right” of a deranged, drug-addicted person to terrorize others with impunity. It will also, like Floyd’s death or that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, or a dozen other equally dubious cases, be routinely cited from now on as proof of American racism and a reason for doubling down on woke policies that will further divide and racialize the nation.
Talk about our indifference to the lives of the homeless is gaslighting, since it is the policies of the political left that have allowed such persons to camp out on streets or in subway cars rather than be taken by police to shelters and hospitals. The freedom for the homeless that has been established in New York — where the “broken windows” policing of the administrations of Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg has been abandoned — means the rights of other citizens to a livable city are abrogated. When people like Neely can harass people into buying their safety with donations in honor of performances like his Michael Jackson imitations or violent rants, then the rule of law is dead.
Leftists believe that, like Floyd, Neely died for our sins as a racist nation. That is why he is now being elevated to the status of secular saint regardless of or perhaps even because of his dysfunction and willingness to threaten others. The Floyd case led to de-policing throughout the country as cops, the only defense minority communities have against the black-on-black crime that afflicts their neighborhoods, have backed down in the face of prosecutions and demonization.
Penny’s prosecution will now pump new life into the BLM movement and ensure that public discourse about race and crime will continue to ignore the facts in favor of ideological myths that will send America’s cities into even greater squalor, violence, and racial conflict.
Related: NYC Kept Jordan Neely Out of Prison After Assaulting 67-Year-Old Woman.
Earlier: In a World Gone Mad, the Jordan Neelys Rule: “Who governs when justice becomes transactional and a mob determines right from wrong, what’s legal or illegal? Democratic politicians in New York are running scared instead of standing up for justice and for the citizens who have been terrorized by Neely and many other people who should either be institutionalized or in jail.”
UPDATE: The Squad Shamefully Tries to Inflame Another Summer of Riots.
‘BRUTAL’ POLL REVEALS THE TRUTH ABOUT JOE BIDEN:
The latest poll from the Washington Post and ABC News sent shockwaves through America’s media commentariat over the weekend, with numbers that are absolutely dire for President Biden. “This poll is just brutal”, announced former Democratic spokesperson turned ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. He’s correct: with approval ratings at just 36 percent, and lagging far behind Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis in potential general election matchups, the voting numbers are terrible. But the personal ratings are somehow even worse than that — 68 percent of those polled, including 48 percent of Democrats, believe Biden is too old for another term. And just 32 percent think he has the mental acuity to serve as president — including 69 percent of Independents.
The numbers jarred Stephanopoulos and commentators across the spectrum. But they’re also a wake-up call for the media about their limitations in selling certain ideas to the American public, well after they’ve seen enough evidence to the contrary.
Flashback: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
DISPATCHES FROM THE MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY: As Hunter’s possible indictment looms, White House press office reportedly bars New York Post from Biden event today.
Sounds familiar… https://t.co/rtEaEldBNn pic.twitter.com/7tIy8UhzxU
— UnWokable (@UnWokablePod) May 8, 2023
MARK FELTON: Germany’s Three Surrenders — VE-Day Special (Video).
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: You Are Not Destined to Live in Quiet Times. Humanity’s third major technological revolution is leading us into a future more promising and also more dangerous than any since the dawn of history. It’s coming faster than you think.
The advent of AI and the COVID pandemic provided two such moments of clarity. The swift appearance and rapid development of practical AI applications on a mass scale has surprised and alarmed many people close to the industry. Geoffrey Hinton, widely credited with developing the intellectual foundation for modern AI, resigned from Google last week to warn about the dangers of an invention so disruptive that he regrets helping to develop it. Hinton’s warning follows a letter signed by some well-regarded tech analysts and industry leaders ranging from Steve Wozniak to Elon Musk cautioning that the unchecked development of AI could pose a threat to the stability or even the survival of civilization as we know it.
The pandemic also showed us how far we have come. When COVID hit, and a panicked population looked for ways to stay safe, Americans discovered something that made this pandemic different from all others: The development of both the hardware and software in the enormous invisible realm we vaguely refer to as “the internet” had reached the point where the majority of the productive activities of American society could be conducted by tens of millions of people without leaving their homes.
But the impact of internet-empowered work from home (WFH) went far beyond helping us get past COVID. Without anybody really noticing, and with some of the world’s most acute observers lamenting the end of progress, the technological basis for a total transformation of the American workplace, urban landscape, and even family had quietly taken shape offstage. The characteristic workplace of the Industrial Revolution, the large, centralized workspace to which white-collar workers commute like clockwork five days a week, is no longer an economic necessity. The megacity of the Industrial Revolution, with an economically dominant central business district surrounded by rings of suburbs, is no longer a natural and inevitable form dictated by the nature of work. The potential for mass WFH also points toward a profound change in the nature of the family of the industrial era—when, uniquely in human history, most children and most parents in nonelite families spent most of their waking hours living separately from each other.
Read the whole thing.
THIS IS MAGA COUNTRY! Lori Lightfoot says ‘right-wing forces’ are why Chicago elected somebody even more left-wing.
Big Bill Thompson, Chicago’s last Republican mayor, left office in 1931.
JOHN KERRY, REPORTING FOR DOODY: Viewers Noticed Something Strange About John Kerry at King Charles’ Coronation. “I’m sure it was a relief for Kerry to have miraculously ‘found’ his medals more than half a century after he chucked them in an act of political protest, but what changed? And why is he now seemingly proud to be associated with his military service in Vietnam?”
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? NIH restarts bat virus grant suspended 3 years ago by Trump.
USA TODAY: Democrats want to fix Kamala Harris’ image problem. Some VP allies fear it’s too late.
Republican attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris are taking hold, and the White House is running out of time to reframe the narrative, Democrats say.
At a meeting two days after President Joe Biden announced his 2024 reelection bid, a group of Democratic strategists told the White House as much during a briefing for television pundits on the pair’s agenda.
For more than two years, Republicans had been trying to paint Harris as incompetent. And yet, the strategists found, the White House was still developing its strategy for how to combat the ruthless assault against the first Black and Asian American woman to hold the vice presidency.
“Ruthless assault.” Or as Jim Treacher says:
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: Stochastic terrorist Roland Martin: Only way to stop mass shootings is ‘to completely wipe out’ GOP.
.@rolandsmartinon the Texas mass shooting: "The only way to change any of this is to completely wipe out the Republican Party. Somebody has to say it. Greg Abbott, the governor, is sick and demented." pic.twitter.com/1VS6nJRgvp
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 8, 2023
—Twitchy, today.
● Chaser:
If we are to embrace the notion of civility and humility in our discourse, that means not falling into our old habits. I was impressed that Roger Ailes, head of Fox News Channel, relayed to Russell Simmons’ GlobalGrind.com what he told his staff after the Tucson shootings: “I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that.”
Who knows if this edict will be photocopied and posted in the office of every Fox talk show host, and throughout its newsroom, to serve as a reminder to everyone when the nation moves further and further away from the shooting?
And he’s correct; those who vehemently oppose the views of Fox News and conservative radio hosts must also adhere to the president’s call for civility.
—“After Tucson, will media tone it down?”, Roland Martin, then-CNN political contributor, January 17, 2011.
RAVING AND DROOLING: Roger Waters Lets Down Antisemitic Guard to Ha’aretz. “‘If that means the end of the Jewish state, so be it…We do not want an apartheid state of Jewish supremacy.’ The phrase ‘Jewish supremacy’ was popularized by arch antisemite David Duke. It is one Waters have invoked before, and he does it a few more times in the interview.”
TWO CALIFORNIAS IN ONE!
● Shot: California reparations panel approves payments of up to $1.2 million to every Black resident.
—Fox News, yesterday.
● Chaser: California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense.
—ZeroHedge, yesterday.
GOODER AND HARDER, NEW YORK: Voices Politicizing NYC Subway Death Opposed Mayor’s Plan for Severe Mentally Ill.
BUZZED ON COFFEE AND DOUBLE STANDARDS:
Anyway, let’s talk about caffeine, or to be more accurate let’s use caffeine as a way to set up my segue. Esquire has a buzzy article about the dangers of getting too buzzed on coffee. It’s a weird piece on the merits because it focuses on people, literal addicts, who drink a lot of coffee. It opens with a story about a guy who drank the equivalent of 10 cups a day. There’s a scary chart that explains that four cups is the recommended limit for “non-pregnant adults.” Ten cups: “negative symptoms can arise.” And 10-14 cups? We’re told that’s a “fatal dose” next to a picture of a human skull!
The author, John McDermott, writes:
So ubiquitous is caffeine in our culture that it doesn’t even register to people as a drug. Step out of the office for a midafternoon cigarette and people might look at you askance. Get caught doing a bump of coke in the office bathroom as a midday pick-me-up and it’s grounds for immediate termination. But slam a Monster or a quad-shot Americano at work and people will think you’re a go-getter.
To which I say, “Um, duh.”
Now, I’ll skip through most of my other complaints about the article and instead provide just a little perspective. First of all, according to McDermott, 80 percent of Americans consume caffeine. That’s about 265 million people. Meanwhile, a 2018 study found that 92 people died from caffeine overdoses in a given year. Let’s round that up to 100. That means about 0.000037736 percent of Americans die every year from overdoses of this horrible drug hiding in plain sight. Meanwhile, in 2016, 951 people died from contact with a power lawn mower. More than 1,100 people died from falls related to ice skates, skateboards, etc. More than 2,100 died from … constipation. More than 10,000 accidentally died from suffocation or strangulation in bed (and we’re not talking about the David Carradine-style deaths). But be careful fleeing your potentially literal deathbed! Because more than 10,000 people die every year falling out of bed.
And yes, yes, I understand that caffeine abuse surely plays a much more lethal role as a contributing factor to other problems. I mean spaghetti carbonara isn’t lethal, but overdoing it can make other problems worse. But you get the point.
I’m so old, I can remember when Esquire ran articles by Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, and Michael Herr. I’d like to think the editors of that era of the magazine would be rolling their eyes at the thought of running an article on the dangers of…caffeine.
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