Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
January 11, 2022
QUESTION ASKED: Say, Does President Biden Support or Oppose Non-Citizens Voting in Municipal Elections? “Say, in this battle of democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice, does the President of the United States have anything to say about non-citizens voting in municipal elections? Does he think it is right, legal, just and constitutional that New York City will now allow more than 800,000 non-citizens in the city to vote in municipal elections? Does he believe that illegal immigrants should get a vote, just like U.S. citizens? If he does not agree with any of this, why isn’t he speaking out against it?”
January 10, 2022
NEW CIVILITY WATCH: LA Times Under Fire For Column on Mocking Deaths of Anti-Vaxxers.
A Los Angeles Times columnist came under fire on Monday for publishing a column celebrating the deaths of those who are anti-vaxx or are opposed to mandates.
The headline of Michael Hiltzik’s column was “Mocking anti-vaxxers’ deaths is ghoulish, yes — but necessary.”
In it, he wrote:
It may be not a little ghoulish to celebrate or exult in the deaths of vaccine opponents. And it may be proper to express sympathy and solicitude to those they leave behind.
But mockery is not necessarily the wrong reaction to those who publicly mocked anti-COVID measures and encouraged others to follow suit before they perished of the disease the dangers of which they belittled.
Nor is it wrong to deny them our sympathy and solicitude, or to make sure it’s known when their deaths are marked that they had stood fast against measures that might have protected others from the fate they succumbed to themselves.
There may be no other way to make sure that the lessons of these teachable moments are heard.
Twitter users blasted Hiltzik.
Note that the article’s URL is “why-shouldnt-we-dance-on-the-graves-of-anti-vaxxers,” suggesting that perhaps an editor toned down Hiltzik’s initial take, and/or the headline was revised before publication. In any case, past performance is no guarantee of future results:
JOY REID: On January 6, I Worried Rioters Would Destroy Black History Museum.
As she watched rioters break into the U.S. Capitol last January 6, MSNBC host Joy Reid has revealed her greatest worry was that the mob would vandalize the Black History Museum, because the protests were “deeply rooted in anti-blackness.”
“I can remember every moment of that day, really, and thinking to myself, ‘My God I hope that these marauding masses of MAGA supporters don’t find the Black History Museum and ransack it.’ That was the first thing that struck me as I saw them, you know, heading toward the Capitol and starting to bash their way in,” said Reid on the anniversary of the disturbance. “For some reason that was the thing that stuck in my head.” She also said a picture of a man holding a Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol “disgusts me more than any of the other images” of the January 6 riots.
To be fair, Reid’s concern is understandable: Documentary Exposes How The FBI Tried To Destroy MLK With Wiretaps, Blackmail.
TO BE FAIR, THEY DO GET THE FUNNIEST LOOKS WHEN THEY’RE WALKING DOWN THE STREET: Fauci’s NIH Division Spent $205K of Taxpayer Money in One Month to Study Transgender Monkeys.
THE KOWTOW CROWD: Intel CEO Doubles Down on Xinjiang Apology: ‘No Reason to Call Out One Region in Particular.’
Soon after Biden signed the act, Intel said in a supplier letter: “Multiple governments have imposed restrictions on products sourced from the Xinjiang region. Therefore, Intel is required to ensure our supply chain does not use any labor or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region.”
That sparked an uproar in China, including an editorial by the Global Times, a party tabloid, criticizing the move as “arrogant and vicious.” So Intel posted an apology to Chinese social-media platforms on December 23. “We apologize for the trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners, and the public,” the statement read.
Then, earlier this morning, before Gelsinger’s latest comments, the Wall Street Journal reported that Intel removed the entirety of the paragraph on Xinjiang from the supplier letter posted to its website. The language on Xinjiang was taken down sometime between December 23 and today.
The chipmaker’s stance on forced labor in Xinjiang touches on a range of other thorny issues that has put it in congressional crosshairs.
Further thoughts from Ed Morrissey: Intel: On second thought, never mind about China’s genocide.
“Surprised? Don’t be; Intel is hardly the first American-based firm to discover that access to Xi Jinping’s markets is its “core.” However, it’s still worth noting in the context of credibility when it comes to corporate social-justice campaigns.
After all, what’s a little genocide between friends?
* * * * * * * *
Given the sell-outs to Xi by tech giants Google, Microsoft, and Apple and the entire Hollywood industry (among many others), Intel’s moral cowardice is as predictable as it is execrable. Still, it’s worth noting for later context when these same corporations engage in social-cultural lectures on the nature of justice and history in the US. If our corporate sector rewrites history to pander to a genocidal tyrant like Xi, they have zero credibility to scold their American customers over anything.”
Earlier: A Slow Kowtow to China.
Demanding obeisance has a rich history in Chinese culture. In 1793, British envoy Lord George Macartney was charged with opening permanent trade relations with China. The Chinese still clung to the old feudal demand of the kowtow. In the old days, the Chinese believed that the emperor literally ruled the world, which meant foreign rulers were more like vassals. And all vassals must acknowledge the supremacy of the emperor, the Son of Heaven. The problem was that Macartney was essentially a stand-in for the British crown, and he couldn’t in good conscience recognize the emperor as his sovereign.
Kowtowing requires three kneelings and nine prostrations—meaning the supplicant actually lies face down on the floor—in order to demonstrate total inferiority. Macartney agreed to kneel out of respect, but he wouldn’t put his head to the ground nine times.
The Chinese were offended and Britain and China didn’t get the trade deal. I bring up this anecdote for three reasons. First, it’s worth recognizing that the trade deal was in the interests of both countries. Lots of “realists” think that countries do things solely out of raw self-interest. That’s arguably true. But the definition realists use for self-interest is way too narrow. Notions of national pride and honor are also forms of self-interest.
Which brings me to the second reason. America should have some notion of honor. We don’t have a crown, but we do have certain ideas and ideals that we like to claim similar loyalty to. We also like to claim that these ideas and ideals are universal. When we figuratively kowtow to China, we are openly admitting to China that both claims are untrue—or at least negotiable. You can’t claim to believe human rights are universal and inviolable while simultaneously excusing or ignoring the mass violation of human rights that defines China under CCP rule.
Last, none of this is in our interest. It’s not like the Chinese respect us for our groveling. They enjoy watching us bend to their demands and mock our obsequious desire to gain favor as proof of their superior system. They use our self-flagellation over race as a cudgel in their propaganda and diplomacy. Such appeasement only buys greater demands and worse moral and strategic compromises.
* * * * * * * *
I whiggishly believe that one day China will be a free country. And when it is, the Chinese will not look back on America today as a spiritual ally the way those who were slaughtered at Tiananmen Square did. They will see us as a country that sought approval from the regime that persecuted their ancestors for the cheap at any price of Fast and Furious 9 ticket sales.
As Jim Geraghty wrote in October of 2019, when the CCP-NBA connection exposed for millions of Americans to see: We’re Not Exporting Our Values to China — We’re Importing Theirs.
FED VICE CHAIR RICHARD CLARIDA TO STEP DOWN EARLY FOLLOWING SCRUTINY OVER HIS TRADES DURING PANDEMIC:
Clarida’s exit comes amid heightened scrutiny over what he had described as pre-planned portfolio rebalancing on Feb. 27, 2020. However, recent disclosures, first reported by the New York Times, showed that three days earlier, Clarida sold shares in three stock funds that he would repurchase on the 27th.
Markets dropped on Feb. 24 amid worries that the spreading coronavirus could cause substantial economic damage. On Feb. 26, Fed policymakers huddled to discuss what policy moves they might take to combat what eventually would become a full-blown pandemic.
Within weeks, the Fed would cut its benchmark interest rate to zero and institute an unprecedented array of lending and liquidity programs to help the economy and financial markets function.
Clarida’s announcement did not mention anything about the controversy, which has been a focal point of Fed criticism from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and some other lawmakers. Two regional Fed presidents, Eric Rosengren of Boston and Robert Kaplan of Dallas, both resigned following questions over their trading activities.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Six sources of Chicago Teachers Union power.
For those Illinoisans looking to hold their elected officials accountable, here are six ways lawmakers are complicit in the CTU’s accumulation of immense power:
1. The CTU is empowered by some of the most union-friendly collective bargaining laws in the country. Illinois lawmakers not only make it compulsory for governments to bargain with the public sector unions over a host of issues, not just pay, but they also make teacher strikes legal – one of just 13 states to do so (See Appendix 1). That’s in sharp contrast to states like North Carolina, which ban collective bargaining with teacher unions altogether.
The CTU gained even more bargaining powers just last year when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed HB2275 into law, expanding the number of employment issues that can be negotiated by the union.
2. The CTU is emboldened by its long history of striking. The union has a long history of successful strikes and walkouts: 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 2012, 2016*, 2019, 2021*, 2022* (See Appendix 2). *walkouts
Read the whole thing.
LET’S GO BRANDON: Billionaire supermarket CEO warns of potential meat, egg shortage as omicron disrupts US supply chain.
The recent impact of omicron on the U.S. supply chain has caused grocery prices to increase and could soon impact the supply of meat and eggs, according to billionaire Gristedes CEO John Catsimatidis.
“Omicron is taking its toll at different levels of the supply chain, whether it’s the warehouses, whether it’s the selectors, the drivers the loaders – and as they call in sick there are interruptions in the system,” Catsimatidis told Todd Piro during an appearance on “Fox & Friends First.”
Catsimatidis went on to say that many of these interruptions will continue over the next 6 weeks as the COVID-19 variant impacts the labor market. The United Refining Company owner added that the Northeast in particular is seeing the price of various products, including eggs, poultry, and beef, go up because of low supply and high demand.
Related: Supply-Chain Issues Leave New Homes Without Garage Doors and Gutters.
Builders are scrambling to find new suppliers, stock up on building products and use substitute materials. Some are scouring retail big-box stores for products they can’t find through the normal supply channels.
That was the case with builder Epcon Communities in Dublin, Ohio, which bought metal shower grab bars online because they weren’t available through its typical commercial suppliers, said Stew Walker, Epcon’s vice president of construction. The company’s electrical subcontractor resorted to buying electrical boxes in hardware stores, he said.
“From one week to the next, the only thing we know is that we’re going to get notified of something else that is unavailable,” Mr. Walker said.
Epcon sold some homes last year without gutters and downspouts, then installed those features after buyers had already moved in, Mr. Walker said.
AOC TELLS ME THIS JUST MEANS THAT FAREED ZAKARIA JUST WANTS TO MAKE LOVE TO HIM: Liberal Media Scream: CNN goes full Nazi on Trump.
This week’s Liberal Media Scream highlights the latest anti-Trump screed from CNN by alarmist Fareed Zakaria in a special about the dangers to U.S. democracy that former President Donald Trump and his followers pose.
In his special, aired Sunday and scheduled again for tonight, he moves quickly to raise the Nazi Germany comparison, and that of madman Adolf Hitler, with the 45th president, who is eyeing a 2024 bid to get his job back.
If Trump “wins the nomination and it’s a close election, we will almost certainly face a constitutional crisis,” Zakaria said in urging Republicans to join more level-headed Democrats to “save American democracy.”
They really can’t quit the Bad Orange Man, despite the fact that they’re treading water obsessing on him: The Ratings Are in for CNN’s January 6th Obsession—and Hoo Boy. “Even during the supposed highlight of the night, the two-hour special from the Capitol, CNN trailed Fox News big time. For further context, CNN’s ratings were down some 90 percent in primetime compared to the previous January 6th. Ironically, Bret Baier’s hard-hitting interview with Liz Cheney on Fox News dwarfed anything CNN did all day, and Tucker Carlson, as usual, was the highest-rated show of the night.”
#FIGHTFORFIFTEEN: These 84 Places in America Are Raising Their Minimum Wages to Ring in the New Year. The consequences will be felt by families already struggling with crippling inflation and a faltering recovery.
GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Gavin Newsom Includes Health Coverage for All Illegal Immigrants in New Budget Proposal.
FLORIDA ANTIFA MAN — WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Antifa Member Arrested With Explosives in Florida.
THE LEFT ISN’T GOING TO ENJOY LIVING UNDER THE NEW RULES THEY’VE CREATED: Kevin McCarthy: I’m Kicking 3 Democrats Off Their Committees If Republicans Win Back House In 2022.
McCarthy made the remarks in an interview with Breitbart News and said that the move comes in light of to Democrats kicking two Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) — off their committees.
“The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who can be on committees,” McCarthy said. “Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on committee. But this new standard which these Democrats have voted for—if Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there is no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or Homeland Security. He will not be serving there.”
“Ilhan Omar should not be serving on Foreign Affairs,” McCarthy said. “This is a new level of what the Democrats have done.”
McCarthy also said that Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff would be kicked off of that committee as well.
Kurt Schlichter tried to warn them in 2015: Liberals May Regret Their New Rules.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: Hair pulling time:
There’s an old joke about a boy who complains to his mother that his little sister keeps pulling his hair.
“Oh,” responds the mother, “she doesn’t know that it hurts.”
A few minutes later, the mother hears the girl scream and runs into the other room. “She knows now,” the boy explains.
There’s a lesson for Republicans in that old joke, if they’re smart enough to absorb it.
Maybe this time they are.
I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE: Alec Baldwin Wants to Find the Real Killer. “Alec Baldwin still hasn’t given his cellphone to the New Mexico police investigating the death of Halyna Hutchins, the woman Baldwin shot last October on the set of the never-to-be-completed film Rust. And you’ll never guess who the real victim is…”
DOMINC GREEN: Antony Blinken’s soundtrack to failure.
Antony Blinken, the secretary of state and first guitarist, has broken with the tired protocols of the past, faced the complexities of the multipolar twenty-first century world, and issued a Spotify playlist. This may be a better way of reaching new audiences than bombing them. But shouldn’t public figures be judged on their records, not their record collections?
“The thread that runs throughout my life is probably music,” Blinken told Rolling Stone last year as he meditated his mixtape. Hitler would probably have said the same about painting had Rolling Stone been around to profile the Viennese amateur who was turning the art world upside down. George Kennan would probably not have said the same, but then, Kennan was the career diplomat whose strategy of containment won the Cold War, not a self-publicizing amateur who can’t contain his own self-regard.
Blinken argues that music “transcends borders.”
Well, not all borders: After Taliban’s Takeover, Piano And Other Musical Instruments Destroyed In Afghanistan.
I’m sure they’re keen fans of Western modernist art, however:
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: John Nolte: The 355 Is Another Woketard Box Office Flop.
The 355 does deserve credit for not pulling a Ghostbusters, for coming up with an original franchise and not hijacking a male-driven one, but does a single second of this trailer make you want to go out in the cold, drive to a movie theater, and plunk down $40?
Who in the world is this movie made for?
The liars in the entertainment media will tell you, It’s about time we had a female-driven action movie! How long are we going to continue to buy into that con? Women have been kicking butt in movies for 50 years. Ask Pam Grier about that. The problem is that the whole idea of 85-pound women taking down 210-pound men is becoming a tired cliché, but nowhere near as tired as the propaganda that says this is something new.
* * * * * * * * *
Who would want to spend two hours with five grim, joyless, smug women?
Most of all, where’s the sex?
You cast five beautiful women in a grab-ass spy movie and there’s not a single shot of T&A? Are you insane?
Plus, the whole vibe is stridently anti-male, so there goes half your audience.
Gee, remember when movies like this were fun and sexy and liked men and were desperate to entertain and went on to make $125 million?
The 355 will be lucky to clear $15 million — a movie that likely cost $60 million to produce and at least that amount to promote probably won’t clear $50 million worldwide.
I assume the Chinese spy was added so that the movie could play there to help its box office, but other than, possibly, Death on the Nile (cough, Gal Gadot, cough), I can’t think of a single film previewed in the endless trailers before the last Spider-Man movie that I thought, “Yeah, I want to see that on the big screen.” For an industry that suddenly has to work very hard to lure a mass audience back to movie theaters, Hollywood sure seems to be phoning it in, post-lockdowns.
NBC’S SAVANNAH GUTHRIE ANNOUNCES POSITIVE COVID-19 TEST.
Flashback to April: NBC’s ‘Confusion’ Over Red States Handling COVID Better Than Blue States.
In another tease minutes later, [Hoda] Kotb promoted “an inside look at the nation’s confounding trends when it comes to the coronavirus.” Fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie explained: “Yeah, we’re going to go behind the numbers and find out why there’s a surge in certain states and a decline in others, and why people in those states could be getting a false sense of security.”
Introducing the segment in the 7:30 a.m. ET half hour, co-host Craig Melvin again declared that “the trends in COVID cases across the country that have health officials really scratching their heads.” Guthrie chimed in: “Yeah, some states with stricter rules are now seeing surges and then many that were reopened right away and abandoned mask mandates are experiencing sizable drops.”
Related: AOC has COVID:
Notice how libs aren’t attacking her for running around Miami without a mask. Notice how her enablers in the media aren’t acting like getting sick is some sort of moral failing. Notice how none of them are screaming that she’s killing Grandma.
That’s because she’s 1) a fellow Democrat, and 2) a healthy, vaccinated young woman who will be mildly sick for a few days. Then she’ll be fine. It’s not a big deal. She’s gonna be okay, and so are you. Calm down.
Here’s wishing AOC a speedy recovery, so she can blame Ron DeSantis and make Republicans want to elect him president in 2024.
Earlier: The Laptop Class Gets COVID.
VIRGINIA CLOWN SHOW UPDATE: The Washington Post wonders How Ralph Northam Survived His Scandals:
Of course, it’s no big mystery how Northam remained in office. If Northam had resigned or the state legislature removed him from office, the lieutenant governor would take over – and the lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, was facing two serious accusations of sexual assault. (The Virginia House Democratic Caucus argued that “the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax are extremely serious,” and also that the state legislature should not investigate the allegations.) If Northam and Fairfax resigned, then state attorney general Mark Harring would be governor — and Harring admitted he had worn blackface to a college party in 1980.
If Northam, Fairfax, and Harring had all resigned simultaneously, then the speaker of the House of Delegates at that time – Republican Kirk Cox – would become governor. And Virginia Democrats believed that a Republican governor was much worse than blackface, wearing a Klan hood, or allegations of past sexual assault.
As apparently (very apparently) does the Washington Post: Ralph Northam and the Washington Post — a story in three acts.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
Shot: American Airlines apologizes about pilot with ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sticker.
American Airlines (AA) went viral after responding to a Twitter user Saturday who complained about a pilot because he had a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker on his luggage.
A Twitter user who has since made her Twitter account private took a picture of the sticker and sent it to the airline, asking if they accept “cowardly rhetoric on their crew luggage when they’re in uniform.”
“We are not the only passengers who noticed and were disgusted,” the user added.
The official Twitter account of AA responded to the user’s public complaint, tweeting, “Thank you for bringing this to our attention and we want to get this to the right team. Please DM any additional details.
The user went on to post what she claimed were direct messages with representatives for the airline, who assured her that her complaints had been forwarded to the proper authorities for internal review.
—Fox News, today.
Chaser: American Airlines allows crew to wear Black Lives Matter pin on uniforms.
—CBS News, September 8th, 2020.
THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON GETS RESULTS! University of Memphis Cancels Plan to Pay Professors to Go Woke, Governor Says. “Gov. Bill Lee (R., Tenn.) contacted the public university immediately after learning about the new program, first reported on by the Washington Free Beacon, which offered faculty $3,000 to redesign their curricula to align with the university’s ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice’ commitments. The governor said the program will not be carried out. ‘The University of Memphis informed my office that the initiative will not move forward,’ Lee told the Free Beacon. ‘We welcome robust debate on college campuses, but taxpayer dollars should never be used to fuel a divisive, radical agenda.’ ‘Ending this program was the right decision, and I thank the university for hearing our concerns,’ Lee said.”
ROGER SIMON: At Minimum, Sotomayor Should Recuse Herself From All Decisions Regarding COVID.
How could such an ill-informed person be a justice of our highest court? What else doesn’t she know—or, perhaps more exactly, doesn’t want to know?
Her full quotation makes it sound still worse.
“We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators.”
None of those are true. We are currently going through a bump in cases of the vastly weaker Omicron variant, which many have compared to a cold and in the vast majority of instances can be treated at home with therapeutics.
Even extreme vaccine enthusiast CDC director Rochelle Wallensky admitted that hospitalizations for other age groups were fifteen fold greater than the pediatric—and those weren’t much.
Sotomayor wasn’t alone on the court with her what some might euphemistically call “mischaracterization.” Justice Stephen Breyer claimed “750 million new cases” of coronavirus had been reported in our country when the entire population is well less than half that.
Can you get two cases of COVID-19 at once? Who’d a thunk it?
What’s going on here? Are the two Supreme Court justices taking stupid pills? Is the “Wise Latina” not so wise after all?
She may not be a legal genius but that’s not the problem. The problem is what I have called “want-to-believe.”
Sotomayor and Breyer are so convinced of liberal/conservative ideology that they are unable even to see the arguments of the other side, sometimes to the extent that they do not even know they are there, that they exist.
Exit quote: “Sotomayor may not make a blunder as obvious as this one again, but the thought process—or lack thereof—that led to it will not change. You might call it the anti-scientific method.”
January 9, 2022
CNN’S MARY KATHARINE HAM’S EPIC VIRAL RANT AGAINST HER NETWORK:
Conservative CNN pundit Mary Katharine Ham slammed her network for its blatantly biased coverage in a series of Twitter posts that went viral.
Ham, in response to criticism by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for saying that media coverage of the congressional baseball shooting was minimal.
“He’s arguing the shootings didn’t get much coverage? Pretty sure they were a huge story,” Haberman claimed.
She was wrong, and Ham pointed that out.
“I lived a block from the baseball field. Under 48 hours, the news vans were gone. I was on TV, live from the baseball field where they played the game a day later, after almost being canceled by mass murder, but my topic was ‘Mike Pence reportedly hired a lawyer,’” Ham tweeted. “You’re welcome to talk yourself into idea that a similar murder attempt on an entire team of Democrats would have gotten the same treatment. I think the shooting of Gabby Giffords is pretty analogous and disproves that theory. Even without that data point, it’s just not true.”
Read the whole thing, which features CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski jumping into the fray against Ham.
Flashbacks:
● ‘The Single Biggest Misconception Is That We Are Lying:’ CNN Contributor.
● Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History. And additional examples of leftist violence and eliminationist rhetoric at the link.