Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
August 14, 2022
IS THERE NOTHING IT CAN’T DO? CBS says study shows that climate change is having an effect on childhood obesity.
JOE CHONCHA: Biden frontrunner for ‘Lie of the Year’ award as many in media look the other way.
“I just want to say a number: zero. Today, we received news that our economy had zero inflation in the month of July. Zero percent. Here’s what that means: While the price of some things go up — went up last month, the price of other things went down by the same amount. The result? Zero inflation last month.”
That was President Biden speaking to the country last Wednesday. His administration has attempted to redefine what infrastructure means (it’s not only about improving roads, bridges and power grids, but also about paid family leave and child care) and what a recession means (it’s not two straight quarters of negative GDP growth anymore). But it just moved into the lead to win the “Lie of the Year” award with the claim that the U.S. economy is experiencing zero inflation.
The facts: Inflation still stands near a 40-year high and came in at 8.5 percent in July.
“Prices have risen across a wide range of goods and services, leaving most Americans worse off,” the AP reported this week. “Average paychecks are rising faster than they have in decades — but not fast enough to keep up with accelerating costs for such items as food, rent, autos and medical services.”
In other words, the money coming into the average household still isn’t keeping up with the cost of everyday items. But the president and this administration decided to turn the most basic economic norms on their head for cheap political gain by arguing that since the inflation rate fell by six-tenths of a percentage point to 8.5 percent in July compared to the same month of last year, that somehow means zero percent.
To be fair, as an Obama administration retread, Joe’s in good company for the Lie of the Year Award:
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Salman Rushdie Stabbing Suspect ‘Had Contact With Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.’ “Intel officials told VICE World News Hadi Matar had been in contact with members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. There’s no evidence Iran was involved in organising the attack.”
As always, life imitates Monty Python. “May I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism in the British Navy. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all anywhere on their bodies, they’re to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up.”
TWO ENGLANDS IN ONE!
Shot: Appalled at attack on Salman Rushdie: British PM Boris Johnson.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed his shock at author Salman Rushdie being stabbed by a man at an event in New York on Friday and condemned the attack on his freedom of expression.
“Appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while exercising a right we should never cease to defend,” Johnson said in a tweet. “Right now, my thoughts are with his loved ones. We are all hoping he is okay,” he said.
Former chancellor and the contender to succeed Johnson as the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, also took to Twitter to express his shock. “Shocked to hear of the attack on Salman Rushdie in New York. A champion of free speech and artistic freedom. He’s in our thoughts tonight,” Sunak said.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the other finalist in the Conservative Party leadership election, said: “Disgraceful attack on Sir Salman Rushdie. People must be able to speak freely and freedom of speech must be defended. “My thoughts are with him, his family and loved ones.” “My thoughts are with him, his family and loved ones.”
Chaser: UK Man Arrested For ‘Malicious Communications’ After Posting Meme Mocking the Transgender Flag.
Hardly a day goes by without some viral international incident reminding us why we’re so lucky to have the First Amendment. The latest such lunacy comes courtesy of the United Kingdom, where police just arrested a man for posting an allegedly offensive tweet.
Yes, seriously.
As shown in a viral video, Hampshire officers on Thursday confronted and arrested a UK man. One of the officers says, “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested.”
—Foundation for Economic Education, August 2nd.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Inside the Massive Effort to Change the Way Kids Are Taught to Read.
As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a very structured, phonics-based reading curriculum called Open Court. It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers. “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.”
The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.
Now Weaver is heading up a campaign to get his old school district to reinstate many of the methods that teachers resisted so strongly: specifically, systematic and consistent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. “In Oakland, when you have 19% of Black kids reading—that can’t be maintained in the society,” says Weaver, who received an early and vivid lesson in the value of literacy in 1984 after his cousin got out of prison and told him the other inmates stopped harassing him when they realized he could read their mail to them. “It has been an unmitigated disaster.” In January 2021, the local branch of the NAACP filed an administrative petition with the Oakland unified school district (OUSD) to ask it to include “explicit instruction for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension” in its curriculum.
Exit quote: “We abandoned what worked because we didn’t like how it felt to us as adults, when actually, the social-justice thing to do is to teach them explicitly how to read.”
It’s an idea so crazy, it just might work.
Related: Hageman Campaign Creates ‘Cheney For Virginia’ Website:
Congressional candidate Harriet Hageman has doubled down on her claims that her Republican primary opponent U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is not a true Wyomingite by creating a spoof website called “Liz Cheney for Virginia.”
The website LizCheneyForVa.com portrays Cheney as a Virginia resident who is working for the priorities of that state.
Cheney spokesman Jeremy Adler did not immediately return Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment on Monday.
In an ad posted on her YouTube channel, also titled “Cheney for Virginia,” Hageman continued to question Cheney’s commitment to representing Wyoming, a topic she has frequently addressed in her campaign.
“Liz Cheney clearly doesn’t know what being a representative means,” Hageman said. “She’s not representing us. She’s not representing Wyoming. She’s not representing our values. Let’s send her home … to Virginia.”
The spoof website invites visitors to get to know Cheney’s hometown in Fairfax County, Virginia and links to a tourism website all about the attractions in the area. It also claims she bases her family in northern Virginia.
It’s a great piece of trolling.
Earlier: Why Wait? Here’s Liz Cheney’s Concession Speech in Advance.
UPDATE: Twitter reacts: Did Al Franken MEAN to put the final nail in Liz Cheney’s campaign’s coffin because YUP we’re pretty sure he just did (and we can’t stop laughing).
(Updated and bumped.)
NEO: More reflections on the Mar-A-Lago raid: Trump as an illegitimate president.
On this blog, commenter “Greg Hlatky” remarked:
You are watching the Ruling Class lose its collective mind over a man who has not been in office for more than a year and a half, didn’t take his salary when President and likely isn’t drawing a pension. Unless Trump is just a MacGuffin.
Trump isn’t just a MacGuffin, but he is at least partly a symbol. Sarah Palin was a similar symbol before him, but because she never was elected VP, the focus on her faded. Trump would have faded, too, if he had lost the 2016 election. His winning and becoming president was the outrage that cannot be forgiven, ever. They could not believe it happened, and they think he must be prevented from ever winning again or ever taking a position of any kind of political power.
Not just Trump, though; any Republican who isn’t part of the genteel NeverTrumper club must never take power. Any Republican who might really be serious about stopping them and especially about draining the so-called swamp cannot have any power. It is a deadly serious game and they are determined to win.
Trump himself said, and he was correct: “They’re not after me, they’re after you – I’m just in the way.”
Read the whole thing.
Related: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
CBS GOES OUT ON A LIMB: One thing the Inflation Reduction Act may not do: Lower inflation.
The Inflation Reduction Act is aimed at tackling a host of problems, from climate change to catching tax cheats, but there’s one issue it may not solve: reducing inflation.
That’s the conclusion of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a group of economists and data scientists at University of Pennsylvania who analyze public policies to predict their economic and fiscal impacts. Its analysis, published Friday, comes as inflation remains near a 40-year high, crimping the budgets of consumers and businesses alike.
The Inflation Reduction Act would invest nearly $400 billion in energy security and climate change proposals, aimed at reducing carbon emissions by approximately 40% by 2030. It also would allow Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers on prescription prices, and would limit out-of-pocket drug expenses for seniors to $2,000 annually. The bill also directs $80 billion in funding to the IRS, aimed at helping the underfunded agency hire more auditors and beef up its customer service and technology.
But the impact on inflation “is statistically indistinguishable from zero,” the Penn Wharton Budget Model said on Friday.
As the man promised voters in 2020, “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”
Related: About That ‘Inflation Reduction Act…’
Even the House of Stephanopoulos isn’t buying the Biden administration’s spin:
JONATHAN KARL: "Isn't it almost Orwellian? How can you call it the Inflation Reduction Act when the nonpartisan experts say it's not going to bring inflation down?"
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "I appreciate the question."
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 14, 2022
ROGER KIMBALL: David Brooks is very worried the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago helps Trump.
It’s things like pursuing policies that make America energy-independent, enforcing immigration laws so successfully that illegal immigration is slowed to a trickle. It’s pursuing economic policies—slashing taxes, sharply reducing regulations that are merely burdensome—that lead to the lowest unemployment rates in decades or in history for minority workers, who also saw real wages rise at their quickest rate ever. It’s defanging “corrupt,” “malevolent,” “partisan” diktats like Title IX rules in colleges and “woke” ideology in the military. It’s insisting that our NATO allies act like allies and pay their agreed-upon fees to support the organization. It’s also making symbolic gestures like moving our Israeli embassy to Jerusalem where it belongs, and formulating the Abraham Accords, a world-historical foreign policy achievement in the Middle East.
I could go on. But I don’t want to stand in the way of David Brooks’ main point, which is to lament that Trump’s narrative, such as it is, has suddenly been goosed by the FBI, which, acting on a wide-ranging warrant that Merrick Garland personally approved, raided Mar-a-Lago, rummaged through Melania’s personal wardrobe, and carted off some 11 boxes of documents that have been variously described as classified presidential documents (just think of Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 emails, some of Barack Obama’s papers, etc.) and “nuclear secrets.” (One wag wondered whether there was a video of Trump peeing on nuclear codes with Russian prostitutes, but that probably came from Christopher Steele.)
The entire episode has put David Brooks in a bind. On the one hand, he would love to see Donald Trump taken away in handcuffs and indicted. On the other, the FBI’s actions have galvanized conservative, and even Republican, support for Trump. It has also got people thinking that America’s premier law enforcement agency is, well, “corrupt,” “malevolent,” “partisan,” and “acting in bad faith.”
Overnight, support for Trump, already strong, surged. Brooks quoted a reporter for Politico: The FBI’s action “completely handed him a lifeline,” he said. “It put everybody in the wagon for Trump again. It’s just taken the wind out of everybody’s sails.” Imagine that. Organize a “corrupt,” “malevolent,” “partisan,” and “acting in bad faith” raid by the secret police against a political opponent and people don’t like it! What is the world coming to?
Why, it’s as if: David Brooks Created Donald Trump.
TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Yes, They’re Going to Arrest Donald Trump. Deal With It.
GOODER AND HARDER, SAN FRANCISCO: San Francisco’s $20K trash cans. “This is yet another scene that could have been taken straight out of the movie Idiocracy. The prototypes are being placed out on the streets and they cost up to $20,000 each. But don’t worry. Whichever model is eventually selected will only cost $3,000 each when they go into mass production. The city is looking to replace 3,000 existing trash cans, so it shouldn’t run much more than nine million dollars. For trash cans. The city is also looking at some off-the-shelf models that range in cost from $630 to $2,800.”
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Investigators Hunt for Motivation and Movements of Man Accused in Rushdie Attack.
Entirely unrelated: Iranian media outlets praise Salman Rushdie stabbing.
Iranian news outlets celebrated the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie as the hospitalized writer fights for his life.
Rushdie, who was stabbed in the neck, is unable to speak and on a ventilator. The man accused of attacking Rushdie has been charged with attempted murder in the second degree along with second degree assault, prosecutors said Saturday.
While there has been no official response from the Iranian government, media outlets in the country rejoiced at the attempted assassination.
Mister, we could use a man like Christopher Hitchens again:
God, I miss the Hitch. His response here to Shirley Williams and the question whether Salman Rushdie should’ve got a knighthood is a class act that no other pundit or thinker have managed or ever will manage to reach. pic.twitter.com/FzCVusR01v
— Ben Brittain (@BenABrittain) August 13, 2022
SAN FRANCISCO DJ BIG RICK STUART: Toy Camera Black and White Photography.
Lots of people took up new hobbies during Covid. I decided to expand my photography skills (and gear) to explore both digital and film. It has been fun and I have had to learn a lot of new vocabulary coming from a Point and Shoot Olympus TG-4 to a Sony a6400.
I also got an old Olympus OM-1 film camera out of the garage and bought a small plastic toy 35mm camera – the RETO Project Ultra Wide & Slim. It is just $30, easy to use, and easy to carry around. Buy it in the US at B&H Photo here.
These are some shots from the Black Stallion Winery in Napa. I was on a bicycle ride so I took the Ultra Wide & Slim loaded with Derev Pan 100 B&W film from the Film Photography Project. They describe it as Hand-rolled into 36 exposure cartridges, Film Photography Project’s new and spectacular panchromatic BW film line DEREV is named after the forests of Ukraine, it’s country of origin as a scientific aerial photographic film.
A panchromatic mylar-based BW film with good exposure latitude and extremely sharp fine grain.
The photos look great — but personally, as with the reemergence in record players, having spent many hours in the darkroom, I have no desire to go back to the future.
HOW IT STARTED: “Why Won’t Trump Release the Warrant!!!!”
How it’s going: President Trump and Breitbart.com Accused of “Doxxing” FBI Agents Who Signed a Public Document.
JUST NBC THE ANGER! MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Blasts Florida For Not Giving ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ To Minors.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Top progressive activist says student debt cancelation isn’t up for debate.
Turner has no obligation to debate me. Maybe she thinks I’m not worth her time. She does have far more followers than I do, to be fair.
But as it turns out, she’s actually unwilling to debate anyone on this subject.
That’s simply unhinged.
Student debt cancelation means spending trillions of the American people’s tax money to pay off the bills of a relatively affluent slice of society. One study even found it would benefit the top 20% six times more than the bottom 20%. It’s a regressive taxpayer bailout.
So, it’s little wonder that this proposal is unpopular with voters. Full student debt cancelation—Turner’s position—is supported by just 37% of the public, NPR polling finds.
That’s right: More than 6 in 10 Americans disagree with Turner’s proposal. But she nonetheless thinks it’s beyond debate, because it’s a question of “human rights” and “people shouldn’t profit from knowledge.”
It’s particularly funny to see Turner claim that there’s no place for profit in education. She is a professor, according to her Twitter bio. I wonder: Does she take a salary or any form of compensation? Or does she just teach as a form of charity?
Anyway, Nina Turner certainly doesn’t have to debate me on this issue. But that one of the most prominent progressive advocates for student debt cancelation is unwilling to debate anyone on the subject suggests that she knows how empty and hypocritical her talking points truly are.
The “it’s not a debate” stance is a standard pose by leftists when they know they’re likely to lose the debate. As Victor Davis Hanson wrote in 2018: “Twenty years ago, there was honest debate over global warming. Ten years ago, there was still honest debate over the effects of human-induced climate change. Five years ago, there was still honest debate over the cost-benefit analysis of dealing with the problem. Not now. Anyone who doubts that there is an existential man-caused threat to the planet — requiring the radical and costly reconstruction of the global economy and society — is considered a ‘denier,’ deserving of professional ostracism or worse.”
August 13, 2022
CHICAGO: 54 People Shot Over Weekend – New Policy Stifles Cops’ Ability to Chase Criminals.
Chicago police data released last week show that murder is down 16% compared to 2021, but up 30% compared to 2019. Overall violent crime is up in Chicago by 35% this year compared to 2021, with theft up 66% and motor vehicle percent up 51%.
Superintendent Brown faced criticism earlier this summer, when his department released a new policy that limits when police officers are allowed to engage in foot pursuits. The new policy requires that the chase only be done “if they believe a person is committing or is about to commit a felony, a Class A misdemeanor such as domestic battery, or a serious traffic offense that could risk injuring others, such as drunken driving or street racing.”
This policy was enacted a year after two Chicago police chases ended in the deaths of a 13-year-old suspect and a 22-year-old, both of whom were fleeing from police and were armed.
Chicago police are still keeping busy focusing on the important issues vexing the city, though: Chicago police will divert some cops from neighborhoods to protect movie sets: report.
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR PROPOSES $1.4 BILLION LOAN TO KEEP NUCLEAR PLANT OPEN:
California Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing to give PG&E Corp (PCG.N) a $1.4 billion government loan to extend the life of a nuclear power plant it runs by as much as a decade as the state seeks to shore up electric reliability while moving away from fossil fuels, his office said on Friday.
The proposal, which would have to be introduced as a bill in the state legislature, is the latest in a series of steps California has made this year to reconsider its 2016 decision to retire the Diablo Canyon power plant by 2025.
California wants to produce all of its electricity from clean sources by 2045, but has faced challenges with that transition, such as rolling blackouts during a heatwave in 2020.
Strict Covid lockdowns and rolling blackouts? Californians sure got it good and hard in 2020. And yet Larry Elder was a reach too far for the state’s voters.
HOW IT STARTED: Starbucks barista arrested for spitting in police officers’ beverages.
How it’s going: Crime Driving Chain Businesses Out of Cities.
Starbucks has announced that it is closing many stores over crime concerns, often in cities led by progressive prosecutors. This development could be fodder for a joke about progressive hipsters whose voting inclinations wind up costing them their venti frappucinos. But these closures risk leaving citizens in the most troubled areas with ever-dwindling opportunities to buy basic necessities for their families.
Starbucks was an early and loud adopter of every progressive whim. The coffee chain demanded implicit-bias training for all employees. After police in Philadelphia removed two black men—who refused to buy anything—from a store at an employee’s request, Starbucks apologized and opened its stores to anyone and everyone.
But the rising tide of crime in progressive cities has proved too much even for the coffee behemoth. Citing safety issues, Starbucks is closing stores in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, and its hometown of Seattle. Each of these cities has a radical prosecutor dedicated to non-prosecution of even serious crimes, such as George Gascon in L.A. and Larry Krasner in Philly. The next time you can’t get a good cup of coffee in one of these cities, consider whom you voted for in the district attorney’s race.
Speaking of which: ‘Woke’ NYC Starbucks now a haven for junkies and homeless. “‘Starbucks got too woke too fast,’ said java joint regular Constantine Dobryakov. ‘Now some customers are too scared to go in because you’ve got a bunch of homeless people sleeping in there. They got to be ready to kick people out and not give everyone a free cup of coffee. You give them a finger and they’ll take a hand.’”
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: NPR: Salman Rushdie hospitalized as police seek motive in stabbing.
Police identified the suspect as Hadi Matar, 24. He was arrested after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center where Rushdie was scheduled to speak.
Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was born in the United States to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a border village in southern Lebanon, Mayor Ali Tehfe told The Associated Press.
Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” drew death threats after it was published in 1988. It was viewed as blasphemous by many Muslims who saw a character as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, among other objections. The book was banned in Iran where the late leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.
Police said the motive for the Friday attack was unclear.
Related: Iran media hails stabbing of ‘apostate’ Salman Rushdie, praises assailant.
IS THE NEW YORK TIMES A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER? OF COURSE IT IS: Source Backs Bari Weiss Account That the New York Times Wanted to Run Tim Scott Op-Ed By Schumer.
The New York Times has repeatedly denied the explosive account from former Times journalist Bari Weiss that a senior opinion-page editor instructed a colleague to “check with” Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) before running an op-ed from Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.). But a second source with direct knowledge of the matter has backed up Weiss’s story to National Review. The source also quoted a message sent by a senior editor at the time insisting that the Times check with Schumer — even providing the email address of Schumer press representative Justin Goodman.
The second source also revealed that Scott’s op-ed, which focused on the Republican senator’s police-reform package, was initially solicited by the Times — as opposed to having been pitched to the newspaper — a detail that was not clear from the original account.
New York Times owner Tom Cotton really has a lot to answer for here.
(Classical reference in headline.)