Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
October 8, 2022
BUILD BACK BRANDON: Shipping down 75% ahead of Christmas shopping.
Looks like Christmas will suck.
Retailers are bracing themselves for a slowdown. Nike slashed prices 65% because it is overstocked. The company is not alone. The Wall Street Journal reported that the cargo ship traffic will drop 75% this month — ahead of the Christmas shopping season.
The newspaper said, “Ocean carriers are canceling dozens of sailings on the world’s busiest routes during what is normally their peak season, the latest sign of the economic whiplash hitting companies as inflation weighs on global trade and consumer spending.
“The October cancellations are a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when scarce shipping space pushed freight rates higher and carriers’ profits to record levels. Last October, companies like Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc. were chartering their own ships to get around bottlenecks at ports to meet a surge in demand for imports.
‘Christmas dinner in a can’ sales should be brisk this year!
HOW IT STARTED: Next mayor wants NYC to be even more of a ‘sanctuary’ for illegal immigrants.
Every single one of the eight Democrats running for mayor vowed to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, solidifying the Big Apple’s often infamous status as a “sanctuary city.”
* * * * * * * *
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, the son of legal Taiwanese immigrants, said, “I appreciate anyone who comes to this country or New York City for a better life.”
And Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said migrants were his neighbors growing up in Queens.
“My mother worked two jobs to provide for the six of us and we had a group of undocumented residents that lived in our community,” Adams said.
The other candidates — city comptroller Scott Stringer, former Obama housing secretary Shaun Donovan and nonprofit leader Dianne Morales — also voiced their support for the Big Apple as a sanctuary city.
—The New York Post, June 2nd, 2021.
How it’s going: Just In: Mayor Eric Adams Declares State of Emergency Over Thousands of Migrants Bused Into NYC.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency on Friday over thousands of migrants being bused to the Big Apple.
“In the next few weeks we’ll be opening a response and humanitarian relief center on Randall’s Island that will house hundreds of people who found themselves in New York City after their long journey from our Southern Border,” said Adams.
“Unless we take immediate action, that center will be full in days and we will have to open another and another and another even as winter weather arrives,” he added. “As a result of that reality, today I’m declaring a state of emergency in the city of New York and issuing an executive order. This executive order will formally direct all relevant agencies to coordinate their efforts to construct the humanitarian relief centers. We’ll also suspend certain land-use requirements to expedite this process.”
This isn’t who we are. Adams clearly needs to reread the words on the Statue of Liberty — and his own promise that New York is a sanctuary city.
Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.
The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.
It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.
Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.
These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.
Why, it’s as if: Democrats Discover Only The Federal Government Can Solve The Border Crisis.
UPDATE: Adams unveils simple, albeit satiric, cure for New York’s illegal immigrant woes: 
(Updated and bumped.)
October 7, 2022
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Sharon Osbourne wants refund after donating $900K to ‘scam’ Black Lives Matter.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Mark Kelly Claimed Biden Was ‘Wrong’ For Not Increasing Oil And Gas Production — Kelly Voted To Kill Drilling Twice.
Related: Blake Masters Decimates Mark Kelly at Debate, Libertarian Candidate Goes Full Libertarian.
JIM TREACHER: Old Man Yells at Mushroom Cloud.
“We have not faced the prospect of armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis… [Putin’s] not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming… I’m trying to figure out, what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not not only lose face, but lose significant power within Russia?”
Remember when Trump’s big mouth was gonna get us into World War Three?
Last week, Biden was trying to talk to dead people. This week, he’s trying to make us all dead people.
Why is the president of the United States saying this stuff in public? What is Biden’s off-ramp? How will babbling about this at a fundraiser convince Putin not to do it?
The answer, of course, is that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was an incredibly stupid man with diarrhea of the mouth even before he was caught in the throes of dementia. Now he’s a thousand times worse. He’ll just blurt out any old $#!+, especially if it makes life tougher for everybody else.
I hate Vladimir Putin. I also don’t want to die in a nuclear war. The Democrats need to do something about Grandpa Joe before he gets us all killed.
As always with a Biden gaffe, the timing is spectacular. As Jim Geraghty writes, “You know, now that I think about it, ‘Armageddon is coming’ probably isn’t a great message for Democrats in the midterm elections.”
No matter what though, Biden is smack-dab in the War Room monitoring the situation. Or not: Biden Warns Armageddon Is Coming, But It’s Time For Him To Enjoy Another Weekend in Delaware.
And no wonder — think of the upside! In 2011, the Huffington Post pondered: Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming?
UPDATE: Never mind! Just a stutter, folks: WH walks back Joe Biden’s warning that we’re on the verge of nuclear Armageddon.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Are Vegetarians Twice as Depressed as Meat Eaters?
Vegans and vegetarians who eat a colorful rainbow of fruits and vegetables (or, you know, a lot of french fries) might be more prone to dark feelings. A new study found that people who excluded meat from their diets had twice as many depressive episodes as omnivores.
To investigate the relationship between a meatless diet and depression among adults, a team of Brazil-based researchers gathered data from more than 14,000 people between the ages of 35 and 74 over a six-month period. They evaluated participants using the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised instrument, a questionnaire that helps diagnose common mental disorders like depression and anxiety. “Depressive episodes are more prevalent in individuals who do not eat meat,” the authors concluded.
The researchers don’t yet know what’s causing the surprising relationship, but say they’ve ruled out some obvious suspects: nutritional deficiencies, socioeconomic conditions, and lifestyle factors like drinking, smoking, and differing levels of physical activity. More “longitudinal data are needed to clarify causal relationship,” the authors wrote.
Related:
GAY PALESTINIAN BEHEADED AND PARADED THROUGH WEST BANK STREETS IN SICKENING DISPLAY:
A gay Palestinian was kidnapped and beheaded this week and his body paraded through a Palestinian neighborhood in a sickening video that underscores the danger LGBTQ people face at the hands of Islamic extremists.
Gruesome footage of Ahmad Hacham Hamdi Abu Marakhia’s body being carried through the West Bank city of Hebron and then left dismembered on a roadside went viral on social media after his death Wednesday. Palestinian Authority police have opened an investigation, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“We are shocked,” Rita Petrenko, CEO of The Different House, which provides a haven near Tel Aviv for LGBTQ Muslims and Arabs who face persecution from Palestinian extremists, told the news site N12. “He was part of an LGBT pride group we started in the South. Many people knew of him.”
Bay Area protest group “Queers for Palestine” could not be reached for comment.
October 6, 2022
LISTEN, SUG, DON’T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS: US splashes $290m on anti-radiation drugs after Putin ups nuclear threat.
The US government has purchased a significant supply of radiation-injury drugs as the Russian president threatened the use of nuclear weapons.
A $290 million procurement of the drug Nplate, to treat acute radiation syndrome (ARS), was announced by the US Health and Human Services (HSS).
The government confirmed it was the first purchase of the drug, manufactured by the California pharmaceutical company Amgen.
The purchase comes after Vladimir Putin renewed his threat of nuclear war. In a speech last month he vowed to use “all the means at our disposal” to protect Russia and its people. “This is not a bluff,” he said.
The US government said the procurement of Nplate was not in response to the war in Ukraine.
An HSS spokesman told The Telegraph: “This is part of our ongoing work for preparedness and radiological security. It has not been accelerated by the situation in Ukraine.”
Flashback: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.
With a 2022 twist! Don’t forget to wear your mask when you’re in the fallout shelter:
Here’s a link to the referenced document if you want to see it for yourself.
UPDATE: Biden Warns of Nuclear ‘Armageddon.’
President Joe Biden issued a warning about a potential nuclear “Armageddon” at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Thursday evening, saying, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
“I don’t think there is any such a thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” added the president.
It has been widely speculated that Russia could employ tactical nuclear weapons in an effort to turn the tide in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Russian forces have been pushed back toward their own border in recent days, causing observers to wonder whether Russian president Vladimir Putin may, in desperation, turn to weapons of mass destruction.
At the fundraiser, Biden called Putin “a guy I know fairly well,” and said Putin is “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons” as a solution to his military’s underperformance.
Flashback: Biden called Trump ‘Putin’s puppy.’ The president-elect may put Moscow on a tighter leash.
—NBC News, December 22nd, 2020.
Still though, look at the upside!
(Updated and bumped; classical allusion in headline.)
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Nine Times Someone ‘F—d With a Biden’ and Got Away With It.
GLENN’S LATEST NY POST COLUMN: Biden hates Republicans so much, he would rather give oil money to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia than Texas.
It’s been a tough year for consumers, inflation is killing household budgets, and according to KPMG, 91% of top CEOs expect a long, tough recession. The Biden administration is even ready to reduce sanctions on Venezuela to get more oil flowing. So it’s desperate. But not desperate enough to undo the damage it’s done to the domestic oil industry, which is the first thing it’d do if it were serious.
Why not? There are a lot of reasons. Greens, who dominate the Democrats, don’t like fossil fuels. But there’s no reason to think that Saudi, Russian or Venezuelan oil is any better for the planet than American oil. It’s just a question of whether the money goes to Saudis, Russians or Venezuelans or to Americans.
And I suspect that’s the real problem. The domestic oil industry enriches people — and states — Democrats don’t like. Money going to Saudis, Russians or Venezuelans is one thing, but money going to Texans, Oklahomans or South Dakotans is another. Truth is, red states and their inhabitants rank higher on the administration’s enemies list than do shady foreign nations.
Read the whole thing.
TEAM BIDEN’S BIZARRE DODGES ON DELAWARE VISITOR LOGS MAKE THE PRESIDENT LOOK GUILTY AS HELL:
Why doesn’t the president want Americans to know who’s visiting him at his Delaware residences?
It’s increasingly clear that Biden has — or believes he has — something to hide: How else to explain the bizarre denial met by The Post in an appeal of its previously rebuffed Freedom of Information Act request to the Secret Service for relevant records?
The denial reiterated the frankly incredible claim that the agency simply doesn’t have any records of who’s come to see Biden in his home state —where he’s spent a quarter of his presidency so far.
Really? Nameless, faceless people are permitted to come and go at will from the home of the world’s most powerful man, with no paper trail created by the agency responsible for keeping him safe?
As Kentucky Rep. James Comer told The Post, “The claim that there are no visitor logs for President Biden’s Delaware residence is a bunch of malarkey.” Indeed, Congressional Republicans — mustered by New York’s own Elise Stefanik — are now crying foul and demanding a release.
They’re right to. We know that Joe took meetings with Hunter Biden’s shady business associates as vice president. And the heat’s been on Hunter (and by extension Joe, aka the “big guy”) for years, with the promise of more to come if the GOP is victorious in the midterms.
You can trust Ol’ Joe — just ask him! You have “his word as a Biden.”
HOW IT STARTED: Watch: Biden drops F-bomb while touring Hurricane Ian devastation in Florida.
President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb in a hot mic moment during a visit to hurricane-ravaged Florida on Wednesday.
The candid moment came as Biden exchanged words with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy, who had just thanked the president for coming to the state.
The two men were shaking hands, and Biden began to say something that was not quite clear in the audio. Several Twitter sleuths suggested he said, “No one f***s with a Biden,” although the last word in particular was muffled.
How it’s going: Federal agents have evidence to charge Hunter Biden: report.
RIDE THE MOBIUS LOOP! California will start handing out $1,050 stimulus payments to residents this week to combat inflation.
Qualifying Californians will begin receiving relief payments of up to $1,050 this week to soften the blow of inflation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $308 billion state budget in June to deliver direct tax refunds to 23 million Californians as they struggle with inflation, which jumped 8.3% year over year.
“California’s budget addresses the state’s most pressing needs and prioritizes getting dollars back into the pockets of millions of Californians who are grappling with global inflation and rising prices of everything from gas to groceries,” said Gov. Newsom, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon in a joint statement.
The one-time payment, known as the Middle Class Tax Refund (MCTR), will be automatically delivered to residents starting Oct. 7, 2022, through Jan. 15, 2023, according to the Newsom administration. It anticipates that 95% of all payments will be issued before the end of the year.
Earlier: Top Democrat Acknowledges the Real Cause of Inflation.
In many ways, Rep. Ro Khanna is a far-left progressive. But the California Democrat also happens to be honest, and more prone to moments of genuine introspection than most in his party. Such was the case when Khanna appeared on Fox News on Sunday and acknowledged one of the biggest causes of our inflation woes that—because it’s politically inconvenient—most Democrats have refused to admit.
“I agree that there’s inflation, prices are up… there are two reasons for that,” Khanna said. “First, the Federal Reserve had quantitative easing for way too long and that was one of the main, primary culprits of this. They didn’t anticipate the inflation, monetary policy is largely determined by the Fed.”
What the congressman is referring to as “quantitative easing” is loose monetary policy, or, crudely simplified, the central bank’s printing of new money. As I’ve previously explained for BASEDPolitics, the Federal Reserve created trillions of new dollars out of thin air to “stimulate” the economy during the pandemic. This had the inevitable effect of making the dollars currently in existence less valuable.
Why, it’s as if “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”
BYRON YORK: Joe Biden, the 82 year-old candidate?
First, the NBC report might be wrong. Biden might be at exactly the stage in the decision-making progress that he described to “60 Minutes.”
Second, even if Biden has decided to run again, he is right about the disclosure requirements of the campaign finance laws. It would not be to his advantage to announce now.
Third, even if Biden has decided not to run again, politically, he can’t say so. The moment Biden announces that he will not seek a second term is the moment the entire political conversation turns to his successor, on the Democratic ticket and in the White House. Will it be Vice President Kamala Harris? Will it be another one of the 2020 Democratic primary field? Will it be someone else? The conversation will go on as if Biden did not exist.
Fourth, and most important, is that Biden is simply too old to run again. He was too old to run in 2020, and he is definitely too old now.
Pop a couple of Geritols, and read the whole thing.
Related: Notice Who Isn’t Barnstorming the Country as the Midterms Approach. “But you also can’t help but wonder if Biden’s lack of appearances on the campaign trail for rallies is another concession to the fact that the president turns 80 next month. Biden doesn’t have Covid-19 as a reason to avoid crowds anymore; in the president’s own words, ‘the pandemic is over.’ Biden has already caught Covid-19 and recovered…It seems likely that Biden just doesn’t have the energy to barnstorm the country and make a lot of appearances even if he wanted to, or if the candidates wanted him to.”
HOW IT STARTED: Watch: Biden drops F-bomb while touring Hurricane Ian devastation in Florida.
President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb in a hot mic moment during a visit to hurricane-ravaged Florida on Wednesday.
The candid moment came as Biden exchanged words with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy, who had just thanked the president for coming to the state.
The two men were shaking hands, and Biden began to say something that was not quite clear in the audio. Several Twitter sleuths suggested he said, “No one f***s with a Biden,” although the last word in particular was muffled.
How it’s going: Inside the White House’s failed effort to dissuade OPEC from cutting oil production to avoid a ‘total disaster.’
LINDSEY GRAHAM THREATENS ELON MUSK FOR DARING TO PURSUE PEACE IN UKRAINE: “If there’s one thing that can be said of Senator Lindsey Graham it’s this: the man loves a war. Whether it be in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or Twitter, the man has yet to see a conflict he doesn’t want to insert his whole chest and all of your money into. So, it’s no surprise he got into a Twitter tussle with billionaire Elon Musk recently.”
MARK JUDGE: Me, Brett Kavanaugh, and the new American Stasi.
In early August 2021, National Geographic published an article titled “As Germany’s Secret-Police Archive Shutters, Reckoning for Its Victims Continues.”
The piece describes the Stasi, the German secret police who controlled, terrorized, spied on, and harassed the citizens of Communist East Germany from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Reading it, I relived some of my own trauma — not at the hands of the German Stasi, but the American Stasi, who upended my life in the fall of 2018. I recount the ordeal in a forthcoming book, The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi.
In America today, we have an organization that is analogous to the German Stasi. Or rather, it is three organizations that often work together — the legacy media, opposition researchers, and leftist politicians. Like their German counterparts, these groups try to effect political change and exert cultural control by blackmailing, terrifying, and embarrassing their victims.
In early 2009, the Washington Post, through its then-sister publication Newsweek informed its readers “We Are All Socialists Now.” Curiously, they left out the fact that the model of socialism that Beltway elites had chosen was East Germany.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The MSM Guidebook on How to Figure Out the Blame for Various Types of Disasters.
3 Political Scandals of the Past 12 Years in the USA, and How the MSM Managed to Find the Culprits
1) WHO IS GUILTY?! In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2006, rescue efforts were bungled in Louisiana’s largest city. Who should be blamed for the scandal?
Should it be the mayor of New Orleans?
Well, ain’t Ray Nagin a Democrat? So: scratch that.
Should it be the governor of the Pelican State?
Well, ain’t Kathleen Blanco a Democrat? So: scratch that.
Should it be the president of the United States?
Hold on: who’s in the White House? Ain’t it a hombre by the name of George W Bush? And ain’t he a Republican?! Yup, it certainly appears so. Well (Snaps fingers) there you go! Nailed it!
Read the whole thing, which is “unexpectedly” adjacent to:
October 5, 2022
NBC’S BEN COLLINS GIVES THE GAME AWAY ON ‘DISINFORMATION:’
Here, in one tweet, we can see the near terminal myopia of the mainstream press — especially among those who believe themselves to be superintending the spread of “disinformation.”
“It could actually affect midterms,” Collins says. Which, by definition, means that Collins believes that Twitter’s current moderation policies are affecting political outcomes. But that doesn’t concern him. What concerns him is that Twitter’s moderation policies might affect political outcomes in the wrong direction. Up until now, Collins and many like him have been quite happy with Twitter’s decisions, because they have gone in a direction of which Collins and many like him approve. If Elon Musk buys Twitter, however, they aren’t sure this’ll continue, and so, suddenly, this becomes a national crisis.
Curiously though, Collins is happy to spread a little disinformation himself:
Earlier: “One of the most fascinating things about the modern age we live in is the population of journalists almost exclusively being from mega rich families and the fact they have done such a good job of hiding it from the internet.”
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Do They Think the White House Is a Bank?
Tell me how the pandemic justified a $5 million disbursement to Boston’s Edward M. Kennedy Institute. What public health emergency necessitated renovating Colorado Springs’ golf course irrigation systems? Did Seattle need to devote over $28 million to downtown apartments for the city’s homeless population, or was that one of the city’s esoteric “priorities?” Has anyone strapped on green eyeshades and audited L.A. County’s $5 million “creative works” jobs program for the city’s moribund “artists?”
Beyond the fact that cash is fungible (another elementary concept we apparently need to review), these are not the unintended consequences of the Covid relief bill. The various relief bills were designed to be oversized, subject to minimal oversight, and nimble enough to plug unanticipated holes wherever they appeared. The lack of interest from the press in the abject waste this program produced would be conspicuous enough. That we’re seeing fiscal prudence now, and only when it may damage a top-tier Republican political prospect, is beyond suspect.
The White House’s allies in media may just be echoing a form of ignorance the White House itself has deployed. President Biden’s political operation seems to have genuinely convinced itself that it could rebut criticism of his lawless transition of private student loan debt onto taxpayers’ shoulders by noting that some of them had taken advantage of Covid relief funding themselves. Some Republicans, they noted, received forgivable Paycheck Protection Program Act loans even as they criticize the president for stealing unappropriated funds from the Treasury to pad the pockets of a favored Democratic constituency. Gotcha!
And somehow, “unexpectedly,” as a result of all of that spending: National debt tops $31 trillion, up from $27.7 trillion when Biden took office.
BIDEN LEMON MOODRING:
Biden:
"I got raised in the black church."
"I got my education…in the black church."
"I probably went to shul more than many of you did."
"I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically." pic.twitter.com/wtBhjDdIlM
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 5, 2022
Like Chevy Chase’s Peter Lemon Moodring parody from the earlier, funnier days of Saturday Night Live, Joe Biden is all things to all Dems.
GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN’T REPORT HERE — THIS IS A NEWS CHANNEL! Fox News Is Actually Covering the Midterm Elections and the Left Doesn’t Like It.