Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
May 19, 2022
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Fisher-Price releases RuPaul figurines, honors efforts to ‘inspire.’
WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? Joe Biden’s Claim That Hunter ‘Has Not Made Money’ From China Debunked by NBC. “Specifically, as NBC News’ review confirmed, ‘Biden made $5.8 million, more than half his total earnings from 2013 to 2018, from two deals with Chinese business interests.’ More than $5 million, for the record, is a far cry from President Biden’s 2020 debate claim that Hunter ‘has not made money’ from China. That kind of blanket denial rarely ends well, especially when the person issuing it is Joe Biden — a man who has tried to shake hands with thin air.”
KINSLEY GAFFE? George W. Bush Hits the ‘Wholly Unjustified and Brutal Invasion of Iraq. I Mean, of Ukraine.’ Does George W. Bush Now Regret Invading Iraq?
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY? Over 8 in 10 Americans think a recession is coming, say poll.
MAD VAX, YO: Buffalo Shooter Was a left-leaning COVID Nazi, Wore Hazmat Suit to School.
UPDATE: Two Authoritarian Leftist Killers Committed Mass Shootings This Week, Media Silent. “On Sunday, Chinese-born man named David Wenwei Chou, a 68-year-old resident of Las Vegas, claimed the life of one person and wounded five others. It could have been much worse if not for the brave actions of Dr. John Cheng, who lost his life putting an end to the assailants’ shooting rampage. Now there is a newly discovered development: Chou has connections to a Chinese communist front group, as was reported by the Epoch Times.”
May 18, 2022
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Guess Which Theme Parks Are Conspicuously Missing From USA Today’s Top 10 List?
But could the complete lack of a presence on this year’s top 10 list mean that theme park visitors are turning their backs on Disney?
Over at Disney Dining, Becky Burkett points out that “a culture war has been taking place between Disney and Gov. DeSantis, leading many to ‘take sides,’ and while many have sided with Disney, many have taken a side against Disney.”
“While there’s no way to know whether these events have any bearing on the list, the absence of a Disney-owned theme park is, to put it lightly, noticeable,” she adds.
There’s been plenty of talk about boycotting Disney. Consumers have canceled subscriptions to Disney+ and avoided other Disney products. Even hardcore Disney-fan families like mine have talked about taking some time off before visiting the resorts again. So a backlash against TWDC could be at play.
Funny that:
WHY DOESN’T BIDEN SUPPORT ETHICAL OIL? Alberta Premier Mocks Biden for Refusing Canadian Oil: ‘You Don’t Need the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet to Patrol the Great Lakes.’
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: School Board Member to Host ‘Open Mic Night’ For LGBTQ Kids — At Her Sex Shop.
AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: First monkeypox case in US this year reported in Massachusetts.
ROGER SIMON: Djokovic Strikes a Blow for Medical Freedom in Rome.
Novak Djokovic is a true hero of our times and a remarkably courageous person on and off the tennis court. In his way, he’s as brave as the magnificent array of doctors whose works are frequently highlighted here at The Epoch Times (Drs. Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Vladimir Zelenko, to name just a few).
He’s also a rather impressive linguist and may speak more languages than Melania Trump.
Constantly offered the opportunity to just take some shots and return to the game to cement his position as the greatest of all time at his sport, not to mention add to his personal fortune (that was already sufficient), Djokovic declined—to the disapproval of the “good people” of the world who marched to the tune of Lord Fauci.
But the worst of it was his treatment by the sports press. Other than a few exceptions (Clay Travis and others), they are among the worst reactionary conformists extant. (I use the term reactionary to refer to today’s liberals and progressives because that’s what they are.) They virtually all ganged up on Djokovic as if they too understood “the science.”
Ironically, many of these people were those who in their past lives considered themselves nonconformists, rebels of some sort. They had devolved into the most obedient.
ESPN was the worst in this regard: slavish followers of the party line. (And speaking of the party line, it’s no accident they are owned by Disney, the most woke and conventional corporation—woke and conventional are pretty much the same thing at this point.)
As Roger writes, “It’s doubtful that even a few of ESPN’s reporters or online personalities are aware of the serious questions now being raised about the efficacy of the vaccines; that in the case of Omicron, they may even exacerbate matters—or if they are, they don’t care. The ends justify their tawdry journalistic means.”
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS ARMED WITH NATIONAL SOCIALIST WEAPONS: Mark Felton on the NVA using Hitler’s weapons in the Vietnam War (video):
NINA JANKOWICZ’S FAULTY RECORD, NOT HER CRITICS, DOOMED THE DISINFORMATION BOARD: And The Washington Post’s wildly one-sided account of Jankowicz’s fall was an exercise in government PR.
It’s unclear whether plans for the board will be un-paused in the future; Jankowicz had initially decided to resign, reconsidered when she was told the pause might be temporary, and then ultimately left anyway.
This news comes from an exclusive report by The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz, whose scoop is buried underneath layers of pro-government verbiage. Lorenz’s story excessively flatters Jankowicz—she is glamorized as “well-known” in the field, having “extensive experience,” and “well-regarded” in just the first two paragraphs—while ignoring legitimate criticism of this so-called expert’s track record. Indeed, there is zero mention, none whatsoever, of the fact that Jankowicz was flagrantly wrong about the pivotal “disinformation” episode of the 2020 election cycle: the Hunter Biden laptop story.
For WaPo, the story is not that DHS shuttered the Disinformation Governance Board—the real story is that right-wing “coordinated online attacks” achieved this outcome after subjecting Jankowicz to an “unrelenting barrage of harassment.”
“Within hours of news of her appointment, Jankowicz was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating,” writes Lorenz.
She concedes that the board’s name was “ominous” and details about its specific mission were “scant.” But most of the article focuses on the tenor of the criticism of Jankowicz.
Lorenz just keeps knocking it out the park — are there any editors at the Washington Post?
UPDATE: Jim Geraghty asks, “Since When Does the Biden Team Quit in the Face of Conservative Criticism?”, and writes that “A better editor would have looked at Taylor Lorenz’s story this morning, contending that the Department of Homeland Security shut down the Disinformation Governance Board because of intense criticism from ‘the right-wing Internet apparatus,’ and told the reporter, ‘No, that’s not the story. Keep digging until you find an explanation that makes sense, checks out, and is less self-serving to those involved’…The Washington Post, which prides itself on its in-depth and detailed coverage of how the federal government really works, should be embarrassed to have published this spectacularly implausible effort at spin.”
BRAVE SIR CHARLES RAN AWAY: Tucker Carlson: ‘Coward’ Chuck Schumer Refuses to Defend His Letter Blasting Fox News ‘Conspiracy Theories.’
Certainly, Fox News is among the leading critics of the Biden administration’s failure and refusal to slow the record pace of illegal immigration. And Tucker Carlson has dealt with that failure on numerous occasions.
Carlson told his audience Tuesday night that he invited Schumer to come on his show to discuss Schumer’s complaint that Fox News is responsible for the rhetoric that inspires mass murder.
“We wanted to hear more from Chuck Schumer about this. We invited him on the show tonight, as we always do, but because he is a coward, this is the only media appearance probably in history he’s turned down,” Carlson said.
Hours before Carlson’s show aired, Schumer tweeted: “.@TuckerCarlson invited me on his show tonight to debate the letter I sent to @FoxNews. I’m declining. Tucker Carlson needs to stop promoting the racist, dangerous ‘Replacement Theory’.”
Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night noted that Americans are suddenly hearing a lot about the “great replacement theory” — which actually figures in Democrat politics, he noted, as Democrats seek to cement their political power by flooding the country with illegal immigrants who are presumed to be future Democrat voters.
Carlson played video snippets of various Democrats, including Joe Biden in 2015, touting — actually celebrating — a white minority USA.
“So you can play clips of them saying it, and you’re the deranged conspiracy nut!” Carlson said.
Well yes, when the left aims to cancel you: The Left blames Tucker Carlson for Buffalo shooting as a censorship excuse:
After an 18-year-old alleged gunman stormed a Buffalo grocery store and killed 10 people, it took the national media apparatus about two minutes to point the finger at conservative media, specifically Fox News and Tucker Carlson. The alleged shooter left an online manifesto with eerie echos of the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand and the shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, spouting off about the “Great Replacement” theory (the antisemitic theory of world-controlling Jews purposely transporting large amounts of immigrants into the United States to change the racial makeup of the country).
But journalists on Twitter and national news outlets took it a step further, pointing the finger squarely at Fox News and Tucker Carlson with the sole purpose of conflating the antisemitic theory peddled online with the very real concerns of an open immigration policy that right now is causing a historic influx of migrants across the southern border, as well as human trafficking and narcotics. These concerns are shared within border communities, which themselves have seen a political demographic shift since the 2020 election, with Hispanics in these family communities turning against traditional Democratic policies.
Journalists know exactly what they are doing in conflating these two ideas, as do Democratic politicians. Putting a target on Fox News and Carlson is simply the latest subtle push at censorship. In recent weeks, corporate media have been caterwauling at the idea of looser content moderation politics on social media, and you can bet that Elon Musk and his pending deal with Twitter will be tied to the Buffalo shooting next.
Earlier: The Left Created the ‘Great Replacement Theory:’ Great Replacement Theory is fueled by woke progressives gloating about America becoming non-white.
Related: Ben Shapiro on The Media’s Big Lie About the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ and Conservatism.
TEXAS KID LIVING HIS BEST LIFE POSSIBLE: Texas toddler orders 31 McDonald’s cheeseburgers with mom’s phone.
Parents be warned: If your toddler gets ahold of your phone, he or she could be entertaining themselves with pictures or music, but they could also be arranging a fast food banquet.
A Texas two-year-old was doing the latter, local CBS8 reported, when he ordered 31 McDonald’s cheeseburgers to be delivered via DoorDash.
“My son was playing with my phone. I thought he was taking pictures, but when I looked back on my thing it was ordered at the time he was playing with my phone,” the boy’s mother, Kelsey Burkhalter Golden, told the local CBS affiliate.
Absolute hoss — this is a kid with a bright future.
IT’S SO CRAZY, IT JUST MIGHT WORK: Mike Lee Introduces Bill That Could Solve the Baby Formula Shortage. “The FORMULA Act would suspend, for six months, the current tariffs on safe, imported baby formula from countries including Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. It would also temporarily remove the regulations that outright prohibit the importation of baby formula from many countries.”
OLD AND BUSTED: In The Future, Everyone Will Be Famous For 15 Minutes.
The New Hotness? In The Future, Everyone Will Be Winston Smith For 15 Minutes: Biden Administration Considers Shutting Down Disinformation Board amid Blistering Criticism: Report.
“Nina Jankowicz has been subjected to unjustified and vile personal attacks and physical threats,” a DHS spokesperson told the [Washington] Post in a statement. “In congressional hearings and in media interviews, the Secretary has repeatedly defended her as eminently qualified and underscored the importance of the Department’s disinformation work, and he will continue to do so.”
And speaking of Orwellian, look who the Post assigned the story to: Taylor Lorenz blames ‘coordinated right-wing attacks’ after Biden’s Ministry of Truth reportedly hits the pause button. “The vast right-wing conspiracy is back, baby!”
Related: Biden’s new ‘misinformation czar’ is a Hunter laptop denier.
May 17, 2022
BIDEN GETS THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS:
Before even taking office, journalists were already elevating Joe Biden to the ranks of those greatest of Democratic presidents, the ones known not by their names but their initials. Not that he was a three-letter president; no one’s ever called him “JRB.” But he could be, hoped to be. Most of all, had to be. The numerous crises facing the country demanded it. And so, he let it be known during the 2020 campaign, his would be an FDR-sized presidency.
Two years later, no one is comparing Joe Biden to FDR*. If his name is mentioned alongside LBJ’s, it is only to note how far short the achievements of the 46th president have come compared to the 36th**. The one predecessor Biden does find himself sharing a breath with these days is Jimmy Carter, who also presided over rampant inflation at home and debacles abroad.
The flattering comparisons have crumbled in tandem with his agenda. Biden entered office with ambitious plans on climate change, gun control, the minimum wage, immigration, criminal justice reform, healthcare, childcare, parental leave, voting rights, tax hikes on the rich, and a host of other issues, many of which were supposed to be folded into the moribund Build Back Better bill. Yet over the past year, his program has been trimmed relentlessly, as one policy after another has fallen by the wayside like a tree being whittled to a toothpick.
With major action unlikely and the midterm elections rapidly approaching, Biden is now scrambling for any victory he can get, however modest or Pyrrhic it may be. This is especially the case as progressives and other core Democratic constituencies have grown increasingly restive and dissatisfied with what they see as a lack of movement on their priorities. Hence, Biden’s recent embrace of student debt forgiveness and continuing efforts to lift Title 42, the directive first implemented by the Trump administration at the southern border to expel illegal immigrants on COVID grounds, on May 23. Both initiatives have support within the Democratic Party, but that support is far from universal. Biden nonetheless seems determined to push ahead. He needs something, anything, to show the base that he’s with them, even if the cost of placating it is alienating the rest of the country even more.
* Some comparisons may be apt: FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.
** No, there is another: As William Voegeli wrote in his review of Shlaes’ 2019 book, Great Society: A New History:
The Great Society was predicated on the opposite conviction: America had become an “Affluent Society” (the title of John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1958 bestseller), whose irrepressible growth meant that worries about finite resources could no longer excuse tolerating remediable social problems (There was no such thing as an irremediable social problem.) Treating America’s new prosperity as permanent and inexhaustible, the Great Society proceeded to kill the goose laying the golden eggs, setting in motion what Shlaes calls an “economic tragedy.” Neither the inflation of the 1970s nor the transformation of America’s industrial heartland into its Rust Belt was inevitable, she argues. Both were direct, foreseeable consequences of short-sighted choices: demanding that monetary policy accommodate irresponsible fiscal policy, and labor and management agreeing to enrich one another by fleecing customers and shareholders ever more brazenly.
Don’t worry though, Biden can handle it — just ask him:
“Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” Biden told Politico last year. “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Biden asked in 2019. The truth is that Friedman, who died in 2006, has held little sway over either Democrats or Republicans for almost two decades. But Biden wants to mark the definitive end of Friedman and the “neoliberal” economics he espoused by unleashing a tsunami of dollars into the global economy and inundating Americans with new entitlements.
I’m sure things will turn out differently this time around.
ROGER KIMBALL: Further Thoughts on Our Ministry of Truth.
The fact that the director of this new effort to police speech is an “internationally recognized expert on disinformation” called Nina Jankowicz makes my point.
The ridiculousness is the first thing you notice.
As Exhibit A I offer this universally mocked video by Jankowicz.
The malevolent part is obvious when you see what it is that she regards as Trump-inspired, Russian-inflected “disinformation.”
Hunter Biden’s laptop, for example.
Even The New York Times now acknowledges that the “laptop from hell” is real, i.e., that its hard drive contains material not only about Hunter’s Satyricon-like sex life and drug abuse, but also Hunter’s business dealings with foreign powers that involve the “Big Guy,” Joe Biden, president of the United States.
The New York Post broke the story just a week or two before the 2020 presidential election.
The entire media suppression apparatus swung into action immediately and suppressed the story.
Twitter gagged anyone who mentioned it.
It’s pretty clear that had the story, which was true, been allowed to circulate, the results of the 2020 would have been different, which is to say Trump’s victory would have had to have been acknowledged.
So you see how Jankowicz’s branding of the story as “Republican” or “Trumpist” or “Russian” disinformation is partly funny but also partly malevolent.
It was one of the events that compromised an American presidential election.
That was the point, of course, but that fact doesn’t make Jankowicz’s false claim any less malevolent.
Here we have a patently partisan activist invested with the responsibility to police speech for the country’s Department of Homeland Security.
Think about that.
Nor is the Hunter Biden wheeze an aberration.
Naked partisan is the name of this game, which is why this new propaganda bureau has been saddled a name right out of Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the Ministry of Truth.
Jankowicz was going full Orwell long before landing her dream job:
“CASH FLOW PROBLEM:” Water Tower With Johnny Cash Silhouette Springs Leak In Most Unfortunate Place.