Author Archive: Stephen Green
October 21, 2021
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS THE NARRATIVE: Nets Censor Devastating Poll Numbers for Collapsing Biden Presidency.
According to Quinnipiac, the President sits at 40 percent approval. It’s even worse for the Grinnell College poll, showing Biden at just 37 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval. Both are respected polling companies and included in the Real Clear Politics Average of polls. (The new numbers can be found here.)
Again, you wouldn’t know that if you watched ABC, CBS or NBC. It’s not as though Good Morning America’s Jon Karl wasn’t aware of at least one of the polls. He cited Quinnipiac, but only the outfit’s numbers on Donald Trump: “A new poll from Quinnipiac found that 78 percent of Republicans want Donald Trump to be president again in 2024.” That amounted to just 8 seconds on the network.
In contrast, Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo highlighted the bad news on Wednesday, noting, “When asked about the most urgent issues facing America, the top answers were the economy, Covid-19, immigration and health care.” Those are subjects that mostly look bad for Biden.
Mostly?
MOSTLY WE SHOULD HAVE THEM — AND SHOULD HAVE HAD THEM DECADES AGO — BECAUSE THEY’D BE GREAT TO HAVE: U.S. needs nuclear spacecraft to compete with China, NASA official says.
TEN DOLLARS OR TEN MILLION DOLLARS, DEMOCRATS NEED TO MIND THEIR OWN DAMN BUSINESS: Democrats Now Say They Will Only Snoop on Bank Transactions Over $10,000.
HEADLINES FROM 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001, 2011: The Marathon Race Toward Fusion Power Could Be Reaching a Sprint.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Tyranny of the Minority—Mob Pushing Netflix Around Isn’t Really Even a Mob. “This is yet another tedious case of a very small but vocal group of people with empty lives getting WAY too much attention for standing in the corner and blowing snot bubbles. They need to be left there to cry it out. Instead, they are coddled by most in the mainstream media and allowed to cry even louder.”
#RESIST: Tesla bulls—and Elon Musk, too—are in open revolt against Biden’s new NHTSA adviser.
A Duke University professor of engineering, Mary Louise “Missy” Cummings, has been reportedly picked as the agency’s new senior safety adviser, putting her at the front line of any regulatory battles around autonomous driving technology. The choice could hurt the company’s fortunes, as she’s been highly skeptical of what she considers Tesla’s reckless approach to full self-driving (FSD) in the past.
Musk believes his $10,000 FSD feature will eventually mint tens of billions of dollars in software profits, as people pay extra for an autonomous vehicle. Several times, however, Cummings has gone on the record with critical remarks regarding Tesla’s—and Musk’s—autonomous driving ambitions. A few landed like—well, this being Twitter—a gut punch.
Making matters worse in the eyes of Tesla investors, Cummings is an independent board member of Veoneer. The Swiss auto parts supplier specializes in active safety systems and advanced driver assistance technology including lidar, a laser sensor that can create detailed three-dimensional maps of the environment by scanning their surroundings.
I’m not a huge fan of Tesla (unlike SpaceX) or autonomous driving, but this looks like yet another potential case of Biden Administration grift.
A ZUCK BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL STINK: Facebook Might Change Its Name, But Not Its Stripes. “Imagine Apple changing its name to ‘Garage Consumer Electronics’ to highlight the company’s humble origins. Or Coors switching its name to ‘Colorado Pisswater.’ Or McDonalds going with ‘Tiny Little Burger Patties You’ll Hardly Notice.'”
October 20, 2021
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Goodbye Middle Class: 50 Percent Of All U.S. Workers Made $34,612.04 Or Less Last Year.
Income for the lower 50% was sharply up under Trump, which is a solid indicator of an incumbent president winning reelection.
The lockdowns changed that — even more more sharply — which, as far as I’m concerned, explains the lockdowns.
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Athena Thorne: ‘Rachel Levine Is a 4-Star Admiral’ Is Our ‘Caligula’s Horse Is a Senator’ Moment. “Comparisons between the United States and the collapsing Roman Empire are plentiful, and Tuesday’s swearing-in of Rachel Levine as the Historic First! (everyone do a shot) ‘female’ four-star admiral is a perfect modern-day version of Incitatus’ elevation.” (My nominee for Headline of the Year.)
AJ Kaufman: Howard Stern: Once a Rebel, Now a Bitter and Obedient Tool. “Stern, who used to stand up against his bosses, is now just an angry, selfish old man, who’d apparently rather use his megaphone to wish death on fellow Americans and demand people follow rules. Stern also brags that he’s barely left his house since the start of the pandemic.” (Coward.)
Yours Truly: China Paper Tiger: Communism Explained in 30 Words (And a Lot More). “Sometimes, at least from the comfort of an ocean away, the central planners’ follies can bring a smile to your face.”
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Cancel Culture Already Won the Chappelle Fight. “So, of course, [Netflix CEO Ted] Sarandos finally backtracked on his initial stance. He gave a new interview to Variety in which he served up the three-word phrase the woke mob demanded.”
FROM THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WANT TO PLAN THE ENTIRE ECONOMY: Democrats to Cops in 2020: You’re Evil Racists And We Want To Defund You! Democrats to Cops in 2021: We Need You To Enforce Vaccine Mandates. Cops to Democrats: Get Stuffed!
THEY’RE BACK ON THEIR HEELS, KEEP PUSHING: Democrats narrow IRS bank reporting proposal to $10,000 transactions.
HMM: FEC Complaint Seeks to Force Joe Biden to Officially Confirm He Is Running in 2024. “The Committee to Defeat the President’s complaint alleges that Biden or his authorized committees received contributions above the $5,000 threshold by November 2020 and after he was sworn in as president in January 2021. Therefore, he is a candidate for the 2024 cycle and must file a Statement of Candidacy reflecting that fact. It also asserts that if Biden says he is not a candidate for 2024, he impermissibly raised approximately $2 million in contributions through his authorized committee, the Biden Victory Fund.”
YOUR WOKE NAVY: Long Chain of Failures Left Sailors Unprepared to Fight USS Bonhomme Richard Fire, Investigation Finds. “A cascade of failures – from a junior enlisted sailor not recognizing a fire at the end of their duty watch to fundamental problems with how the U.S. Navy trains sailors to fight fires in shipyards – are responsible for the five-day blaze that cost the service an amphibious warship, according to an investigation into the July 2020 USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) fire reviewed by USNI News.”
Damage control used to be one of the Navy’s not-so-secret weapons, but at least now our sailors are trained to be more sensitive.
FLORIDA MAN: DeSantis Shuts Up the COVID Panic Pimps Yet AGAIN.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The Car Shortage Is About To Get A Whole Lot Worse. “A global shortage of magnesium could result in a near-total shutdown of the auto industry — one that experts say could come by the end of this year.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Joe Biden Plays the ‘Inside Game’ Because He Doesn’t Have an Outside Game. “The bully pulpit has been reduced to a walker. Nine months into his tenure, Biden is already a spent force that nobody listens to. In terms of his influence, he went directly from honeymoon to lame duck. It is still likely that the Democrats will pass something this year — and whatever they pass, Biden will sign, and everybody knows it, so his actual leverage is zero.”
I called it back in June: Bye-Bye, Biden Infrastructure Blowout — Hello, First-Term Lame Duck?
WELL, CERTAIN PEOPLE PRETENDED NOT TO NOTICE: There Was an Insurrection Last Week and No One Noticed.
ED MORRISSEY: Dems’ dawning realization: Manchin’s serious.
Salena Zito warned everyone first, and Punchbowl follows up today with the same message: Joe Manchin means what he says. Democrats and the media may not grasp this as it happens so rarely in Washington, and neither group has included that in its calculations. However, that reality keeps getting clearer and clearer, and the Punchbowl crew warn Democrats to figure it out — fast.
No kidding. That’s always been the reality, right along with the reality of an evenly split Senate. One would think that Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer would have put those two realities together and realize that launching a massive progressive-agenda reconciliation bill would have been a no-sale from the very beginning. Up to now, Democrats seem to have talked themselves into a fantasy that Manchin was just looking for a deal, or that they could pressure him into folding.
Read the whole thing.
Related: CNN Democrat Budget Freakout.