STOP, OR WE’LL SAY STOP AGAIN! International Court of Justice in The Hague orders Russia to suspend invasion of Ukraine.
That ought to do it for Putin.
(Classical reference in headline.)
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
March 16, 2022
THE ARCHITECTS OF OUR PRESENT DISASTER:
Gaddafi’s reward for cooperating with the American government was to be sodomized with a bayonet on the way to his mob execution. Rather than expressing regret or even responding with a modicum of discretion, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton crowed, “We came, we saw, he died.” Vice President Joe Biden echoed her sentiments, “Whether he’s alive or dead, he’s gone. The people of Libya have gotten rid of a dictator. NATO got it right.” In the wake of Gaddafi’s murder, Libya devolved into utter anarchy with slave markets where you could buy a human being for $40 and a civil war that lasted until 2020. The country became a seedbed of terrorists. Gaddafi’s regime had stood between Italy and Subsaharan Africa. With him out of the picture, Italy and the rest of the EU quickly became overrun with illegal immigrants.
The message the Libya episode sent to governments around the world was clear: You can do everything the Americans ask but there is still an excellent chance that they will put a knife in your back. It became painfully obvious that American foreign policy had become completely divorced from any rational aims. From that point on, Putin began actively working against American interventionism, most notably in Syria with his support for the government of President Assad in its fight against rebels and terrorist groups like ISIS, many of whom were trained and armed by the U.S. government. As Russia drifted further from the West, the U.S. government’s antagonism towards Russia further increased. The next target for a color revolution would be Ukraine.
Found via a Ricochet member who writes: It’s Time to Ask: Are We the Baddies?
Related: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
DOESN’T ADVANCE THE NARRATIVE: Philadelphia Child Shot, National Media Silent For Specific Reason.
[12 year old Thomas Siderio, Jr.] is white, like most Americans shot by police, by the way, so he will not be revered like other victims of police shootings.
Folks like Siderio are killed by police at nearly double the rate each year as black people.
Dead Caucasians, however, do not score political points for perpetually angry left-wing bigots. The activists and media usually ignore their deaths because facts interrupt the outrage machine’s Big Lie that police are “systemically racist.”
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and his memory holing makes perfect sense.
Evergreen:
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: GOP Sen. Mitt Romney votes with Democrats to keep masks mandate for toddlers.
Related: These 6 Republicans Voted Against Ousting Fauci.
Not surprisingly, Mittens is among them.
More: When the establishment cries treason. Romney calls Tulsi Gabbard ‘treasonous’ as war becomes an excuse for the lazy. “It’s a shame, because I’m not in total agreement with Gabbard here. She and her fellow foreign policy realists were right about Iraq, Libya, Syria. But when it comes to Russia’s invasion of a sovereign country, it doesn’t seem like enough to sigh ‘I guess we shouldn’t have pushed NATO eastward’ and then go back to your breakfast croissant. America didn’t force Putin to invade Ukraine. His decision to do so was his own; it was also flatly, explicitly evil. But then that’s a discussion we can have among rational adults, free from the din of the online mob. As for Romney, I don’t know whether he considers Gabbard’s remarks to be treasonous or severely treasonous. But maybe he ought to spend a few minutes breathing into a paper bag.”
March 15, 2022
FASTER, PLEASE: Senate votes to nix mask mandate for public transportation.
OKAY, GROOMER: Teachers in Eau Claire School District in Wisconsin Are Being Instructed to Keep Students’ Gender Experimentation Secret From Parents.
Related: Did James Lindsay of New Discourses.com originate the “Okay, Groomer” phrase? I thought I had seen several people using it on Twitter before I started employing it here last week. But if so, a tip of the hat:
DEPEND UPON IT, SIR; WHEN A MAN KNOWS THE MIDTERMS ARE IN NOVEMBER, IT CONCENTRATES HIS MIND WONDERFULLY: In an about-face, liberal U.S. cities target homeless camps.
Trump’s catastrophic decision to acquiesce to the demands of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx—the former a charlatan, the latter a dunce—and shut down the country two years ago this week was by far the worst moment in his presidency and rivals the worst moment in any presidency. As usual, however, Trump’s first instinct (the one he suppressed to appease those demanding we honor The Science™) was the right one. The cure should not be worse than the disease, he fretted. He knew it, but he listened to the quacks anyway.
The cure, of course, got worse. Emboldened by their success in forcing Trump to authorize the first 15-day shutdown, the then-adored Fauci and Birx took it a step further. With two dubious projection models in hand, the pair went to the White House at the end of March 2020 and convinced Trump to extend the lockdowns another month.
The decision sealed his electoral fate; the booming economy he helped build entered a death spiral.
Indeed: Two Years After Lockdowns, The West’s Troubles Aren’t Ending — They’re Just Beginning.
Flashbacks:
● Johns Hopkins Analysis: ‘Lockdowns Should be Rejected Out of Hand.’
UKRAINE: Russia demands return of Alaska and Californian fort in fury at US sanctions.
In accordance with the prophecy; I hope that President Klain is reading America’s Newspaper of Record:
UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE: Peter Robinson interviews Bari Weiss on Post-Mainstream Media Life and Her Battles in the Culture Wars (video):
CHARLES MURRAY: The Immortal Sowell. “In a reasonable world, Thomas Sowell’s life would be celebrated in the same way we honor Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, and Marian Anderson—as a black hero, born into a genuinely systemically racist America, who not only endured but prevailed.”
MANCHIN ANNOUNCES OPPOSITION TO FEDERAL RESERVE NOMINEE SARAH BLOOM RASKIN:
Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board appeared all but doomed on Monday after Sen. Joe Manchin III, a key Democratic vote, said he opposed her because of her stance on energy in an era of inflation.
“I have carefully reviewed Sarah Bloom Raskin’s qualifications and previous public statements,” Manchin, or West Virginia, said in a statement Monday. “Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs. I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to support her nomination to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board.”
Raskin’s nomination to the job of vice chair for supervision — the Fed’s top banking regulator — was already under pressure, with Republicans initially opposing her candidacy over her focus on climate change and its threat to financial stability.
Can’t say I blame him. As the Wall Street Journal noted in January: Biden Plays Capture the Federal Reserve. Sarah Bloom Raskin wants to politicize Fed bank supervision, especially on climate.
In May 2020, with awful timing, she wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “Why Is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?” That was amid the government’s pandemic shutdowns, when the Fed was acting to save the economy from collapse. The Fed established broad-based lending programs to prevent businesses that were otherwise sound from failing due to the shutdowns.
Ms. Raskin wanted the Fed to exclude fossil-fuel companies from these facilities. “The Fed is ignoring clear warning signs about the economic repercussions of the impending climate crisis by taking action that will lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions at a time when even in the short term, fossil fuels are a terrible investment,” she wrote.
This showed colossally bad judgment. The crisis of the hour was Covid and a potential depression, not climate. Yet at that perilous moment Ms. Raskin was urging the Fed to discriminate against an industry that employed hundreds of thousands of people. Had the Fed taken her advice, many more oil and gas producers would have gone bankrupt, and energy prices would be even higher today.
As Glenn wrote in December in the New York Post: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
And his radical fellow travelers.
(Updated and bumped.)
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Biden Blames the Jews for His Ukraine Policy. “Despite some occasional public vows of affection for Israel, Obama’s performative progressives, who staff nearly every important position in the Biden administration, do not see it as an ally. Insofar as Israel jeopardizes the Iran deal, it is a U.S. adversary. Russia, on the other hand, is an important partner in getting the deal across the finish line.”
YES, THE OVERCLASS HAS MOVED ON TO WORLD WAR III NOW: Axios-Ipsos poll: Pandemic’s over, folks.
DOLLY PARTON BOWS OUT OF ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME CONTENTION:
She shared her decision on Twitter today (3/14), writing, “Even though I am extremely flattered and grateful to be nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I don’t feel that I have earned that right. I really do not want votes to be split because of me, so I must respectfully bow out.”
She added, “I do hope that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will understand and be willing to consider me again — if I’m ever worthy. This has, however, inspired me to put out a hopefully great Rock ‘N’ Roll album at some point in the future, which I have always wanted to do! My husband is a total Rock ‘N’ Roll freak, and has always encouraged me to do one. I wish all of the nominees good luck and thank you again for the compliment. Rock on!”
Smart move, considering that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would likely benefit from her inclusion far more than Parton actually would. There are curiously lots of non-rock performers in the nominations for the class of ’22, including Parton, A Tribe Called Quest, Dionne Warwick, Fela Kuti, Eminem, and arguably Carly Simon.
MY CULTURE IS NOT YOUR SPARKY CAR: Charge Cars Builds a Limited-Edition Electric Ford Mustang.
London-based technology company Charge Cars has reimagined the classic 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback into a contemporary luxury EV as its first proof of concept vehicle limited to 499 units. The engineers from Charge Cars worked closely with EV technology company Arrival, the world’s first AI racing platform Roborace, and tire manufacturer Michelin for this project.
The original combustion engine has been replaced with a 536 horsepower electric motor capable of accelerating 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The car boasts a range of 200 miles and its DC fast charging capabilities allow its 62 kWh battery pack to charge from 20 to 80 percent in an hour.
Steve McQueen weeps:
“WHO WANTS TO TELL HIM?” Keith Olbermann defends Dr. Fauci & advises Sen. Rand Paul to ‘become an actual doctor.’
In accordance with the prophecy: Kaepernick Sad That No Slave Owner Will Enslave Him No Matter How Many Times He Tries Out To Be A Slave.
—The Babylon Bee, November 1st, 2021.
CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE:
—Mediaite, yesterday.
● Chaser: Putin’s forces may only be able to keep up the fight for another 14 days, UK defense sources say.
—The London Daily Mail, yesterday.
DISPATCHES FROM THE PARTY OF TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY: San Francisco is now boycotting most of the United States.
San Francisco is a small place, and not self-contained. The American Can Company at Third and 20th streets isn’t clanking and banging 24 hours a day anymore, with workers piling in for three shifts. San Francisco can’t forge the parts it needs to keep its buses running, fix its buildings or run its computers. It has to buy things, lots of things, from elsewhere.
San Francisco makes this hard. It makes it expensive. A March 4 memorandum from City Administrator Carmen Chu reveals that San Francisco will not enter into contracts with businesses headquartered in most of the United States — 28 states in all. Official travel to those states is also forbidden. And this list includes some surprises: Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin.
As a result of this vast boycott, San Francisco is constraining the number of businesses it can ink deals with, which all but certainly inhibits quality and drives up costs. It also adds onerous time constraints to the contracting process, which leads to poor outcomes and also drives up costs.
“It limits our ability to procure products and receive services and contract services we need to run,” explains Chu. “It limits competition for our work.”
Why would we do this? As is the case with so many San Francisco misadventures, it all started with the best of intentions.
The road to San Francisco usually does.
WELCOME BACK, CARTER! There’s a serious risk of a recession in 2022.
March 14, 2022
WE NEED TO START WORRYING ABOUT WHAT KIND OF A WORLD WE ARE GOING TO LEAVE FOR KEITH RICHARDS: Keith Richards on quitting smoking cigarettes after 55 years: ‘I just don’t miss it.’
THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED:
I don’t think even a Maureen Dowd-level consumption of edibles would make me forget I’m eating a visual representation of the ear that Tyson bit off in the ring.