RIP, PAULIE CICERO: ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Law & Order’ Actor Paul Sorvino Dies At 83.

IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING:

There’s a notion that if you want to gauge the future of the economy, just look at default rates for auto loans. When times are good, autos are one item that people typically load up on. As the video points out, the pandemic “stimulus” packages had a whole lot to do with stoking unusually brisk demand for autos that people happily overpaid for. Now they are handing those autos back to the creditors in alarming numbers.

Video at link.

Another leading economic indicator is also flashing red: Walmart Plunges After Slashing Profit Outlook, Blames Fuel/Food Costs.

POTUS TWEET BRAGGING ABOUT HOW MUCH $$ BIDEN’S SAVING YOU IS WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS (EVEN GRAMMATICALLY): One “peson.” “They’re as good at spelling as they are at economics:”

Earlier: Viewers Noticed Something Off About Kamala Harris’ Interview in Louisiana. “Yep, whether it was Essence Fest or the West Wing that had final approval over the backdrop, the typo went unnoticed by everyone…until it was too late. There, as Harris and Palmer talked about the state of the country (more on that later), was LOUSIANA in giant letters over the vice president like the midterms loom over her party.”

In a 2010 article headlined, “Obama’s Hell of a Ride,” John Podhoretz wrote:

Something weird happens when presidencies go wrong — presidents become incompetent at doing the things they were always able to do in their sleep, and their aides follow suit. I noted this when I wrote my first book, Hell of a Ride, about the decline and fall of the first President Bush, back in 1993. When Bush spoke, it rained, and his advancemen weren’t quick-thinking enough to move his events indoors. When he went to Japan on a state visit, he vomited. He was so intent on getting out his message of the day that he referred to it as “Message: I Care.”

But then, this presidency has been going wrong long before it even started.

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Samantha Bee’s ‘Full Frontal’ Canceled in Latest Late-Night Cutback.

DISPATCHES FROM THE HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS: ‘Revisionist Nonsense:’ Twittersphere Comes For ABC’s Jonathan Karl When He Claims Al Gore Was A ‘Gracious’ Loser.

But critics were quick to point out that Gore had initially conceded the race — but then went on to withdraw his concession within hours, at which point the battle began in the courts. He continued to demand recounts until the Supreme Court put a stop to that, and only then did he concede again — but he and other Democrats still continued to complain about the results.

“This is total bulls**t. He pretended he lost that election for years after the SCOTUS ruling and years after every recount proved he lost. Nothing compares to the outrageous behavior of Trump since 2020, but don’t pretend Gore was something he wasn’t. It’s revisionist nonsense,” David Bahnsen tweeted in response.

As Dan McLaughlin adds, “Gore did a lot to create the world in which what Trump did was thinkable — and the fact that Gore didn’t go as far as Trump did down that road doesn’t excuse what he did to start us down this road.”

JIM TREACHER: Remember When Biden Said He Had #OilCancer? “It’s been five days since Joe Biden said he got cancer from an oily windshield.”

TO BE FAIR, THAT DRUGSTORE WAS WEARING ITS SKIRT AWFULLY SHORT IN RECENT YEARS: San Francisco Chronicle tries to blame Walgreens for Chesa Boudin’s failures.

SKYNET SMILES: Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent.

HOW IT STARTED: Minneapolis City Council Calls for Defunding the Police.

How it’s going: Minneapolis neighborhoods hire off-duty officers through ‘crowdfunding.’

Unexpectedly!

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: New York City Mayor Warns ‘Everyone’s Block Is Going To Be Impacted’ By Influx Of Illegal Aliens.

—The Daily Wire, today.

KINSLEY GAFFE: 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.”

RIP: Bob Rafelson, ‘The Monkees’ Co-Creator and ‘Five Easy Pieces’ Director, Dead at 89. Maverick filmmaker had longtime collaboration with Jack Nicholson and produced indie classics like The Last Picture Show.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: Democrats declare needless emergencies — on COVID and maybe climate change — to grab power.-

Gov. Kathy Hochul has been extending her “emergency” powers monthly since she declared a state of emergency in November in response to the Omicron variant. (That was after declaring a “statewide disaster emergency due to health-care staffing shortages” in September.)

The governor’s office downplays her extensions by saying they give “the state the flexibility to troubleshoot hospital capacity issues.”

But that’s not all. As Albany’s Times Union reported last week, “The order suspended competitive bidding for certain contracts as well as the normal contract review and approval process conducted by [Comptroller Tom] DiNapoli’s office, which oversees state government spending.”

This is a big deal. The state spends our money recklessly at the best of times — but with this “emergency” in place, it doesn’t have to answer to us or even pretend to give expensive contracts to anyone but friends.

The family of Charlie Tebele, owner of Digital Gadgets LLC, has donated almost $300,000 to Hochul’s gubernatorial campaign. By great coincidence, surely, the state has paid Digital Gadgets $637 million for at-home COVID-19 test kits. No bidding, no problem. It’s an emergency, you see.

Read the whole thing.

RIP: David Warner, Stalwart British Actor in ‘The Omen,’ ‘Tron,’ ‘Titanic,’ Dead at 80.

QUESTION ASKED: Now that Joe Biden has COVID, can we call it a “pandemic of the vaccinated?”

IT’S SUMMER RERUN SEASON AT MSNBC: ‘Battle Stations!’: MSNBC Analyst Says If Republicans Win They’ll Cancel Elections, Impeach Biden Weekly.

Flashbacks:

● Fiona Hill: ‘Democracy is done’ if Trump is reelected.

—MSNBC, October 8th, 2021.

● Jeff Daniels Rips GOP On MSNBC: If Donald Trump Gets Re-Elected, “It’s The End Of Democracy.”

—IMDB News, May 20th, 2019.

HOW THE MEDIA POLARIZED US: The shift from ad revenue to the pursuit of digital subscriptions has turned journalism into post-journalism.

What comes next for the media industry? The validation of disturbing news within certain value systems has finally become a viable business model. But this business model has stratified the press, bringing meaningful results only to large, nationally concerned media outlets. News validation creates a swarming effect: people want to have disturbing news validated by an authoritative notary with a greater followership. Audiences want to pay only for flagship media, such as the New York Times or the Washington Post. If other, smaller media outlets don’t join the chorus, they risk digital backlash; if they do join it, they struggle to differentiate themselves and lack authority to be a recognized news validator, anyway. Most subscription money flows to a few behemoths. The new subscription model has led not only to media polarization but also to media concentration.

The biggest loss, however, is the mutation of journalism into post-journalism. The death of those newspapers that shut down before this mutation was at least honorable. Journalism wanted its picture to fit the world. Post-journalism wants the world to fit its picture, which is a definition of propaganda. Post-journalism has turned the media into the crowdfunded Ministries of Truth. The worst part for journalists is that only a few enterprises can succeed in this new business model. The worst part for society is that all legacy media need to pursue digital subscriptions or viewership as their last hope for survival, and thus must join the race of post-journalism.

A temptation always exists to blame media bias on a closely held conspiracy, but the real drivers lie deeper. Creed and greed might fill the medium with the messages, but it is the medium itself that defines polarization—its true message. If ad-driven media manufactured consent, reader-driven media manufacture anger. If ad-driven media served consumerism, reader-driven media serve polarization. There can be no “solution” for a shift of such magnitude. “How do we fix polarization?” is the wrong question. The right question is, “How are we going to live with it?”

Read the whole thing.

THIS IS ALL PART OF THE CALIFORNIA FREEDOM THAT GAVIN NEWSOM IS TOUTING THESE DAYS: US states divided over petrol stations as L.A. considers ban on new pumps.

As is this: Federal judge temporarily blocks BART from evicting Berkeley homeless encampment.

UPDATE: From America’s Newspaper of Record: 10 Biggest Adjustments Fleeing Californians Have To Make In Their New States.

I’LL TAKE “SUMMER” FOR $500, ALEX: Explainer: What is behind the heat waves affecting the United States?

GOODER AND HARDER, NEW YORK: Thefts of Catalytic Converters Have Quadrupled in New York City This Year.

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Liz Cheney reiterates she hasn’t decided on running for president in 2024.

“MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE:” Biden Administration Bracing for a Tsunami of Bad Economic News Next Week.

Politico calls the coming avalanche of bad economic news a “Category 5 storm.” Indeed, the Biden administration may want to dig a hole and hide while Biden goes to his summer home in Delaware, given the depressing numbers that will come out of Washington this coming week.

Consumer confidence numbers (which currently stink) hit on Tuesday. A Federal Reserve meeting and decision on interest rates, coupled with a press conference from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, follows up on Wednesday.

The first reading on second quarter economic growth drops on Thursday. And the latest numbers on our vexing run of historically high consumer price inflation close out the monster run of data on Friday. In a note to clients today, analysts at Deutsche Bank suggested the flood of information will “leave you breathless.”

Yikes.

For the White House, hope springs eternal. The administration has been touting the dropping price of a gallon of gas this month as if they’re reading the entrails of a newt and discovering that “prosperity is just around the corner,” as Herbert Hoover claimed right before the bottom dropped out of the economy.

But what are those newt entrails really telling us?

If only leading economists could have predicted the bad news:

UPDATE: Ahead of Expected Dismal Economic Data, White House Seeks to Redefine ‘Recession.’

Post-Reagan, recessions have a tendency to be politicized. The National Bureau of Economic Research redefined their recession definition to move the recession back from the third quarter of 2008 to December of 2007. Similarly, in the fall of 1992, the media hid the economic recovery occurring under George H.W. Bush’s watch to enable the Clintons’ “Worst recession in 50 years” lie. Or as a Time magazine headline writer described it with maximum self-satisfied snark on December 7th of 1992, “Bush’s Economic Present for Clinton.” The economy would grow 4.2 percent that quarter, but you never would have known it from the DNC-MSM until after November 3rd.

(Updated and bumped.)

I EAT CANNIBALS: Will Cannibalism In Culture Change The Unthinkable Into The Acceptable?

On July 23rd, the NY Times ran an article discussing the rise of cannibalism in popular American culture called A Taste for Cannibalism? The article covered the claim, “A spate of recent stomach-churning books, TV shows, and films suggests we’ve never looked so delicious — to one another.” Did the Times publish that article to protect Biden? Eating your neighbor is now popular, so you don’t have to worry about the supply chain crises or Bidenflation.

The Times started out by giving examples of the many books, movies, and TV shows using people eating as part of their plot lines. Not one of those examples of modern culture uses Sheb Wooley’s classic “purple people eater.” Nor did the NY Times story mention the Broadway musical hit from 1979 about cannibalism called Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The “Old Grey Lady” listed the yummy people media and asked the question, “Can you stomach it?” In a rare move, the NY Times didn’t find a way to blame the trend on conservatives.

Classical reference in headline:

STEVE MORSE TO STEP AWAY FROM DEEP PURPLE PERMANENTLY: BAND PAY TRIBUTE. Morse says it’s impossible to commit to Deep Purple’s future plans as he looks after his wife, who is battling cancer: “I simply must be there with her.”

HE’S SUPER-CEREAL ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING: Al Gore Compares ‘Climate Deniers’ to Uvalde Police Officers.