GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING: Biden Claims Economy Today Is Stronger Than Before Pandemic.
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
December 22, 2021
FASTER, PLEASE: Pfizer pill becomes first US-authorized home COVID treatment.
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT:
Shot: Bullish China Warns U.S. Unification With Taiwan Unstoppable by ‘Any Force.’
—Newsweek, yesterday.
Chaser: US Air Force allows usage of pronouns in electronic signature.
—The Washington Examiner, today.
JAMES LILEKS’ WEDNESDAY REVIEW OF MODERN THOUGHT:
It’s not that I don’t like the subject, or the writer. It’s a combination of the two into something that elevates “food journalism” into something very important. It is not very important, although of course I should talk.
Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps you will react differently to the first paragraph of this New Yorker profile, which I found mysterious: who the hell cares about any of this.
Alison Roman approves of creamed greens, knobby lemons, and iceberg lettuce. She’s a slicer of onions, not a dicer; a “ride-or-die corner person” when it comes to lasagnas and cakes. She doesn’t sift flour, soak beans, or peel ginger. Instapots are a no, as are runny dressings, tomatoes on sandwiches, apples as snacks, and drinks served up. Breakfast is savory. Naps are naked. Showers are “objectively boring” and inferior to baths. The thing to do, according to Roman, is to start the water, put on a towel, and head back into the kitchen. The amount of time it takes to fill the tub is roughly equivalent to the time it takes to tear up a loaf of stale bread, for croutons fried in chicken fat.
“You either like my style or you don’t, you’re into the vibe or not,” Roman told me.
* * * * * * * *
The distinction seems to be about the appearance of caring overly much. In Roman’s world, an admission of effort must be offset by an ungiven fuck.
Ladies and gentlemen, the New Yorker.
You can see the modern-day William Shawn looking at a poem submitted by Robert Frost, thinking “wouldn’t this be better if it was the fuck ungiven, not the road not taken?”
To be fair, this reads like an example of New York life attempting, somehow, to get back to what passes for normal there in some quarters, at least before the phrase “the Omicron Variant” became universally known. Read the whole thing.
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Elon Musk Sits Down With The Babylon Bee (Video).
(Bumped.)
GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Life is Short, But Prop 65 Warnings May Not Be.
On January 8, 2021, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) proposed changes to how businesses warn under Proposition 65. I wrote about it back in February 2021 and explained why the agency’s proposal to change short-form warnings would negatively impact businesses by way of increased costs and unnecessary liability and yet still fail to address the Prop 65 overwarning problem – something the agency intended to fix with the rulemaking.
CalChamber and the Consumer Brands Association (CBA) led an industry coalition of 119 organizations pushing back against the proposed changes, arguing the rulemaking should be rescinded because the proposal was flawed, relied on faulty data, was contrary to regulatory assurances made by OEHHA to all stakeholders when first overhauling Article 6 warning provisions in 2018 and failed to achieve OEHHA’s stated of addressing Prop 65 overwarning.
After almost one year since the rulemaking began, OEHHA recently noticed its plan to move forward – but with some notable modifications that appear to have been made in direct response to CalChamber and CBA industry coalition comments.
Short-Form Size Limitation Increases From 5 Square Inches to 12 Square Inches
The coalition argued that the agency does not explain nor provide evidence to justify why a 5-square inches or less requirement is the appropriate cutoff. CalChamber and the coalition articulated that such a policy change deviated from OEHHA’s own most recent guidance telling businesses that Article 6 had “no size limitations for which products could utilize short-form warnings.” The regulated community relied on these express statements when spending significant time and resources overhauling their Prop 65 compliance programs.
Under the modified approach, OEHHA proposes to increase the maximum label size for short-form warnings from 5 square inches to 12 square inches, explaining that “after considering these comments, OEHHA determined a 12 square inch limit would accommodate [–] concerns, while still limiting use of the short-form warnings to packages with limited available label space for consumer product information that would not easily accommodate the full warning.”
Flashback to Reason magazine in 1987: “Proposition 65 is a lawyers’ welfare act. I don’t think it will have any effect on public health.”
JOE MANCHIN IS NOW POISED TO SWITCH PARTIES:
I have long suspected that Manchin will stick with his party, especially if he has no plans to run for political office after his Senate term ends in early 2025, when he’ll be 77 years old. But with national polls indicating a Republican sweep in the offing in the November 2022 congressional midterm elections, does Manchin want to be ensconced in the minority party to complete his term of office?
All these calculations, and more, are probably swirling in Manchin’s head. He was never a fan of Donald Trump, but he’s no longer president now, and it’s Manchin’s party making his life miserable.
The Senate’s party conferences meet at least once a week while they’re in session. It’s not hard to imagine at which conference Manchin would be more welcome. For once, the switch to at least a GOP-caucusing independent looks increasingly likely. The stage is almost set for him to cross the aisle. He should.
Make it so.
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE K-12 IMPLOSION: DC Librarian Who Made Children Reenact Holocaust Is Failed Dem Candidate, Convicted Fraudster, and Animal Abuser. Kimberlynn Jurkowski defrauded New Jersey of $24k, abused dogs.
The principal of Watkins Elementary School, Scott Berkowitz, did not return a request for comment on Jurkowski. D.C. Public Schools did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including about whether it was familiar with Jurkowski’s criminal record prior to hiring her.
Since working in D.C. Public Schools, Jurkowski has struck an ultra-partisan combative tone online. Her Twitter account is filled with retweets of calls to abolish the police and defend Palestinian terrorism. One Al Jazeera post she shared claims that a Palestinian terrorist named Ahmad Erekat was killed by Israeli police but fails to mention that he was shot after ramming his car into Israelis.
Watkins Elementary School is located just outside a city ward represented by a Democratic lawmaker who claimed that Jews control the weather.
We need a complete and total shutdown of DC until we can figure out just what the hell is going on there.
THE YEAR OF LIVING TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURELY. John Podhoretz: Biden vowed a return to normalcy — instead, we got a year of chaos.
Imagine President Joe Biden opening up the doors on his advent calendar on these final days before Christmas.
On the 21st, the doors reveal: a graph depicting the decline in Biden’s approval ratings from 55 percent in January to 44 percent today,
On the 22nd: a photograph of a helicopter hovering over the US embassy in Kabul as Afghanistan falls to the Taliban in August.
On the 23rd: another graph, this time of the inflation rate, rising from 1.4 percent on Election Day to 6.8 percent in November.
And finally, on December 24th: Sen. Joe Manchin, the man who finally performed a mercy killing on the doomed Build Back Better bill, dressed as Santa, waving at him in one of those weird plastic-rubber 3D picture cards that were popular 50 years ago.
I’m not saying Joe Biden is his own worst enemy. It’s more like he’s his own worst best friend, a man who gives himself absolutely terrible advice and is deeply grateful to himself both for offering and listening to such sage counsel.
Never has a politician snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in quite the manner Biden has.
Exit question:
December 21, 2021
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Elon Musk Sits Down With The Babylon Bee (Video).
ONE BIG LESSON FOR CEOs — AVOID CAUSING HEADLINES SUCH AS THIS: Furious Customers Are Suing Hertz for $529.7 Million. Here’s the Lesson Every CEO Should Learn:
More than 180 Hertz customers are suing the car rental company in bankruptcy court, seeking damages of just under $529.7 million. Most of these customers were stopped by police, and sometimes arrested, for driving Hertz cars that they had legally rented.
According to their filings, for years Hertz has falsely reported that its cars were stolen as part of its regular business practice, “ensnaring its customers in accusations of car theft, throwing them in jail on felony charges, prosecuting them, burdening them with criminal records that impact their livelihoods, and separating them from their family and loved ones.”
Why would Hertz claim that its cars were stolen when legitimate renters were driving them? Believe it or not, the filing claims this is a cost-cutting measure. In some cases, the company simply misplaces a car or a rental contract and doesn’t know where the car is. Rather than upgrade its malfunctioning inventory systems or conduct its own investigation when cars are unaccounted for, Hertz simply reports these cars as stolen, the filing claims. The plaintiffs say the company is “effectively using the police, criminal justice system, and taxpayers to subsidize inventory control for a private corporation.” The unfortunate renters who happen to be driving those cars are collateral damage.
Read the whole thing.
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Biden’s Net Economic Approval Rating Tanks to -13 Points, Worse Than Jimmy Carter.
Forty-five percent of registered voters said they approved of Biden’s performance on the economy, according to the latest CNN/SSRS poll released Tuesday, a study that has generally been more favorable to the president than others. Fifty-four percent said they disapproved. “The average of all polls taken in December is quite similar with Biden at -13 points on the economy,” CNN said in its findings, noting the figure exceeded even former President Jimmy Carter’s low-water mark in 1978, when a CBS News/New York Times poll found that president with a -8 percent gap.
On Biden’s performance more broadly, 55 percent said they disapproved, while 44 percent said they approved.
The development comes after skyrocketing inflation. Labor Department numbers pegged inflation-related price hikes at 6.8 percent in November, the highest number since 1982, and 6.2 percent in October. November marked the sixth consecutive month the rate fell above 5 percent.
Both Obama (source of the above headline) and Carter himself must laughing at having to dodge the Carter comparisons thanks to Brandon’s ability to indeed, f*** things up.
Was this the moment when everything went pear-shaped?
MICHAEL WALSH: Time to Fire the Decepticons and Get Over COVID.
Here we are, coming up on the second anniversary of “two weeks to slow the spread” of a flu-like virus most likely hatched in a Chinese Communist laboratory in Wuhan, with a little help from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the American taxpayer, and the dreaded COVID-19 chest cold has conquered the planet, instilling fear and loathing in weak minds whenever and wherever it appears in any of its Transformers-like, constantly mutating configurations.
In the Transformers film series, ordinary household machines like cars can suddenly reshape themselves into terrifying robots; the evil ones were known as Decepticons and had scary names like Megatron and Bonecrusher. In the world of socialized medicine, this viral beast has been dubbed by the government the Omicron variant (what a title for a Robert Ludlum thriller), which of course has arrived, right on schedule, to attack the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations around the world.
The irony is, had the novel coronavirus been treated the same way as its immediate predecessors, including SARS, the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, and the Hong Kong flu of 1968, no one would be talking about it, there would have been no lockdowns, no masks, no ruination of the economy, no destruction of the travel industry, no stealth takeover of private medicine and, most important, no unconstitutional loss of personal liberty.
Indeed — Woodstock, Altamont, and Apollo 11 all took place during the Hong Kong flu outbreak. In January of 1969, Paul McCartney even fretted that he might have it, one of many moments in Peter Jackson’s newly edited Get Back miniseries that resonates in 2021.
HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Americans Fled ‘Woke’ States in ‘Historic’ Numbers in 2021.
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: The Covid-19 Pandemic Actually Helped Saved Retail.
The hottest of hot takes from Bloomberg.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACIST IDENTITY POLITICS? Rep. Bowman: ‘White man’ Joe Manchin doesn’t care about Black people, immigrants, poor.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY DARK WINTER! Seen on the Interwebs:
HEATHER MAC DONALD: Inside the Omicron Fear Factory.
In March 2020, a profile of the typical Covid victim emerged from Italy. The average decedent was eighty years old, with approximately three comorbidities such as heart disease, obesity or diabetes. The young had little to worry about; the survival rate for the vast majority of the population was well over 99 percent.
That portrait never significantly changed. The early assessments of Covid out of Italy have remained valid through today. And so it will prove with the Omicron variant.
The data out of South Africa, after five weeks of Omicron spread, suggest that Omicron should be a cause for celebration, not fear. Its symptoms are mild to non-existent in the majority of the infected, especially the vaccinated; hospitalization rates are over nine times lower than for previous Covid strains; deaths are negligible. That assessment will only be confirmed as the US and other western countries gather their own data on Omicron.
Yet the public health establishment and the media are working overtime to gin up Omicron hysteria. The official response to the Omicron variant provides a case study in the deliberate manufacture of fear. The following strategies are key:
Read the whole thing. The Omicron Fear Factory flies in the face of logic, particularly given this statistic: Fentanyl overdoses become No. 1 cause of death among US adults, ages 18-45: ‘A national emergency.’ More adults between 18 and 45 died of fentanyl overdoses in 2020 than COVID-19, motor vehicle accidents, cancer and suicide.
WORDS ARE VIOLENCE, BUT ACTUAL VIOLENCE IS MERELY PEACEFUL PROTEST: Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) says disagreeing with her is ‘policy violence.’
“Today, over 43 million people in the U.S. are crushed under more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt,” the congresswoman wrote in an explosive Twitter thread. “The student debt crisis is multiracial & multigenerational… it is a racial, gender & economic justice issue. [President Joe Biden] can & must #CancelStudentDebt.”
Here’s where it gets wild.
“Let’s make it plain: student debt is policy violence,” Pressley concludes.
That’s right: The Massachusetts congresswoman has coined a seemingly new term, “policy violence,” and is attempting to smear her opponents with it. That includes me.
I oppose student debt “cancellation” because it is actually a regressive policy that forces working-class taxpayers to pay the bills of a wealthier subset of society: the college-educated. I also believe that it’s an (insanely expensive) Band-Aid on a bullet hole. It fails to address the failed federal policies that have made college so absurdly expensive in the first place.
I’m hardly alone in this view. A February 2021 Yahoo Finance survey found that 54% of voters oppose the cancellation of all student debt. Apparently, Pressley believes those of us who hold the radical view that people can pay their own bills are committing an act of violence!
I’m happy to debate my fellow citizens who, in good faith, fall down on the opposite side of this issue from me. But Pressley is not one of them. By absurdly labeling disagreement on a complex policy issue as “violence,” the congresswoman is attempting to delegitimatize views other than her own. Labeling speech as “violence” — even though words do not and never can constitute an act of violence by definition — is a precursor to the outright suppression of dissent.
After all, if speech is violence, then the government is justified in quashing it. If speech is violence, then violence is justified in response to that violent speech. By Pressley’s disturbing logic, student debt cancellation advocates would have the right to assault their ideological opponents physically as a matter of self-defense!
But assaulting her ideological opponents is something Pressley appeared to have called for in August of last year: Pressley Calls for ‘Unrest In the Streets.’
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) said Saturday the rioting caused by anti-police protests should continue in major cities across the country “as long as there’s unrest in our lives.”
“There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives, and unfortunately, there’s plenty to go around,” Pressley said on MSNBC’s AM Joy with Tiffany Cross.
Pressley said the lasting “public outcry” holds Trump-backing Republican lawmakers accountable for ignoring the needs of American families.
“I’m looking to the public,” Pressley said. “You know, this is as much about public outcry and organizing and mobilizing and applying pressure so that this GOP-led Senate and that these governors that continue to carry water for this administration, putting the American people in harm’s way, turning a deaf ear to the needs of our families and our communities. Hold them accountable.”
The congresswoman’s comments follow a summer of heated demonstrations over racial justice and police brutality, which have in some cities led to riots and mass destruction. In Portland, protesters repeatedly attacked a federal courthouse with fireworks and other explosives. Last weekend, rioters in Chicago broke into and looted stores along the city’s Magnificent Mile and damaged the exterior of a local charity.
As Glenn has joked, getting Pressley and the rest of “the Squad” elected was Roger Stone’s last and greatest political dirty trick.
JOE MANCHIN DARES DEMOCRATS TO PUSH HIM OUT OF PARTY:
Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) on Monday dared Democrats to push him out of the party if they are unhappy with his views, one day after he announced he will not support President Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, effectively killing the bill.
Asked on Hoppy Kercheval’s West Virginia radio show if he believes there is still a place for him in the Democratic party, Manchin replied: “I would like to hope that Democrats feel like I do. I’m fiscally responsible and socially compassionate.”
“Now if there are no Democrats like that, they ought to push me where they want me,” he added.
During the interview, Manchin said he had gotten “to the wit’s end” with the negotiation efforts, saying the White House knows “the real reason” things fell apart.
White House staff “drove some things and they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable. They know what it is,” he said.
Chuck Schumer played a role in Manchin’s disillusionment with his fellow Democrats:
Dems could have used the reconciliation process to raise the debt ceiling and keep the government funded. They didn’t need a single Republican vote to do it, but that process would’ve been lengthy and difficult, and they might have had their own party members (looking at you, AOC) with stupid, last-minute items that would’ve embarrassed the party by revealing the truly radical nature of their power base.
So, McConnell gave in and did Schumer a favor.
Remember how Schumer thanked him? By laying into him with a diatribe on the floor of the Senate.
Remember how Manchin reacted? Watch:
[Click over for video — Ed]
“This is crazy,” you can see Manchin mouth to an unseen colleague. He then buries his head in his hands in frustration and despair before he gets up and storms out of the chamber while Schumer continues his rant.
You want a picture of incivility? That’s the freaking Mona Lisa right there. And it pretty much set the table for Manchin from that day forward, culminating in his proclamation to Brett Baier on Sunday. Manchin knows that there’s no way forward with these people. And the old, trusted allies he fooled himself into thinking he had (Schumer and Biden) are long gone.
That speech from Schumer may have made the New York Democrat feel great. Must’ve been real cathartic for him. And the lefties on Twitter absolutely loved it as well. “Slay Queen!” they tweeted in all CAPS!
Good for Chuck!
He owned the cons for a night and alienated the one guy he needed to accommodate, thus ensuring his status as a failed Senate leader.
He also solidified the death knell for his president’s last chance to get anything done before Republicans take over the House and the Senate in eleven months.
This could mean that the Biden presidency, in terms of any real legislative achievements that would matter to a Democrat, is over. And Chuck Schumer ended it.
Meanwhile, Hollywood drops the mask, and lets Manchin, and in one actress’s case, West Virginia have it with both barrels (figuratively speaking, not Alec Baldwin-style): ‘This is how the elite feel about normal Americans’: Bette Midler, 76, draws the ire of conservatives and liberals after branding people in West Virginia ‘poor, illiterate and strung out’ during attack on Manchin:
Bette Midler has come under fire from both conservatives and liberals after she tweeted that Senator Joe Manchin ‘wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia…poor, illiterate, and strung out.’
The First Wives Club actress infuriated thousands with her snobbish missive, which said: ‘What #JoeManchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible.
‘He sold us out.
‘He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia.
‘Poor, illiterate and strung out.’
Criticism for Midler’s high-handed comments quickly poured in from both conservatives and liberals.
Mike Schlossberg, a Democratic state legislator from Pennsylvania, criticized Midler, tweeting: ‘Respectfully: This isn’t helping. “I AM SMARTER THAN YOU SO AGREE WITH ME” has never convinced anyone. Ever.’
Another Twitter user wrote to Midler: ‘You suck as a person.’
Rob Reiner, Jennifer Rubin, Bill de Blasio and Unitarian pastor and author John Pavlovitz joined in the Twitter scrum, though they at least had the sense to attack Manchin himself, and not the people who elected him.
THIS WEEK IN STRAY VOLTAGE: White House shakeup: Biden to get new German shepherd and cat as current dog gets rehomed.
The first family is revamping its pet lineup, bringing in a new dog and cat while President Biden’s current dog is set to be rehomed.
The Bidens received a pure-bred German shepherd Monday as a birthday gift from the president’s brother James Biden and sister-in-law Sara Biden, according to first lady Jill Biden’s office. The dog, which was born on Sept. 1, will go by the name Commander.
The Bidens’ current German shepherd, Major, will be rehomed with family friends. The Bidens made the decision to move Major after consulting with dog trainers, animal behaviorists and veterinarians, who said the dog would benefit from a quieter environment.
Major has been a source of controversy for the White House after being involved in several biting incidents since Biden took office in January, including a string of eight days in a row in which Major bit a Secret Service agent. At least one White House visitor was also bitten by Major, in March, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki saying the dog “was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual.”
Hey, that’s one way to get the DNC-MSM to temporarily focus on another topic after Joe Manchin torpedoed Build Back Brandon, and “stray voltage” is a classic tactic for a group of Obama administration retreads. This one is at least much more benign that accusing the Border Patrol of whipping illegal immigrants.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teacher fired after call for ‘shooting’ anti-vaxxers.
A Pennsylvania teacher lost her job after suggesting on Facebook that Americans who refuse COVID-19 vaccinations for religious reasons should be shot.
The General McLane School District in Erie County confirmed Monday that Mollie Paige Mumau has not been teaching at McLane High School or permitted in school district buildings since Dec. 8, a few days after she suggested in the Facebook post that the Republican Party “take those guns they profess to love so much and just start shooting all of their constituents who think this way.”
Does Mumau also want to see these crazed Maga hat wearing rubes shot as well? Why Only 28 Percent of Young Black New Yorkers Are Vaccinated.