Author Archive: Stephen Green
October 5, 2020
LIFE ON THE STREETS: A Cop Confesses What Policing Is Like in the Age of BLM/Antifa.
UPDATE: The Left Knows Best: Internet Doctors Don’t Even Need to See Trump to Treat Him.
My bonus column today is just for our VIP members, so if you’ve been thinking of becoming a member, you can do so here — and don’t forget to use that VODKAPUNDIT discount code.
NIGHT OF THE VOTING DEAD: Registered Democrat caught requesting mail-in ballot for dead wife.
WHO? BidenWatch for October 5, 2020. “Like antifa, Joe Biden is just an idea, CNN skews its poll even more than usual, more “inappropriate” touching, and Biden refuses to take a position on, well, just about everything.”
VIDEO: PJM’s Megan Fox Finally Finds a ‘White Supremacist’ Outside Walter Reed Hospital.
They’re always in the last place you look.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: McCabe Turns McChicken, Gives Unbelievable Excuse for Not Testifying.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What’s a good excuse for refusing to testify before Congress, even remotely?
Answer: Pretty much any excuse but the one former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe just gave.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- The Wuhan Flu death rate is dropping faster than Ted Kennedy’s pants.
- Finally, a mostly peaceful protest.
- ABC News wants a non-practicing doctor to practice on Trump, because reasons.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
CRIME OF THE CENTURY: Hacker Uploads Own Fingerprints To Crime Scene In Dumbest Cyber Attack Ever.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Hospitalized Trump Has More Energy Than ‘Healthy’ Biden. “I’m mentally exhausted from the awfulness from the Left since last Friday morning. Basic human decency is out the window and I don’t know if the other side will ever get it back. I spent a good chunk of the weekend shunning social media and drinking a strong IPA. That may be the plan every weekend going forward for the rest of the year, or until the election is finally over next June.”
DIANE KATZ: Reforming Regulation to Spur Economic Growth.
During the Obama administration, the nation’s regulatory burden increased by an astonishing $122 billion annually, according to analyses by Heritage Foundation experts, or “nearly double the $68 billion in private-sector costs imposed under the Administration of President George W. Bush.”
As large as that cumulative cost is, however, it does not account for the total costs of the Obama administration rules. The $122 billion figure includes only major regulations, not the thousands of administrative rules issued every year. It also does not capture significant but intangible costs such as lost innovation or violations of individual liberty.
More:
On January 30, 2017, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13771, which requires agencies to offset the cost of any new significant regulation (or guidance) with at least two deregulatory actions.
The executive order also established a regulatory budgeting system under which the Office of Management and Budget assigns to agencies a cap on the amount of “incremental costs” that would be allowed for the fiscal year.
This regulatory budgeting is intended to inject a modicum of economic discipline into rule-making. If agencies are compelled to restrict the costs imposed on the public, they must engage in a type of rolling retrospective review of the vast accumulation of rules that comprise more than 185,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations.
The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs projects that the fiscal year 2020 caps will reduce regulatory costs by $51.6 billion (in present value).
If Biden wins, deregulation loses.
LIVE AND LET DIE: Bond was the last straw: Regal and Cineworld will reportedly close all theaters in US and UK next week.
Variety reports that all 543 theaters in the US will be closed, which account for the chain’s 7,000+ screens in the region. The Sunday Times reports that it will close all 128 theaters in the UK and Ireland, too.
Both say James Bond is the reason.
Yesterday, the 25th James Bond film — No Time to Die — was pushed back to April 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic, denying theaters one of the last major tentpole releases due out this year. Apparently, theaters were counting on Bond, specifically, to arrive on time and help bail them out of poor ticket sales.
Sad.
CHARMING: S.C. Democrat’s Campaign Derides Lindsey Graham as ‘Lady G.’ “Harrison camp led by aides with history of homophobic tweets.”
BY THE NUMBERS: Lockdowns May Have Had Little Effect on COVID-19 Spread.
New infections should drop on day one and be noticed about ten or eleven days from the beginning of the lockdown. By day six, the number of people with first symptoms of infection should plummet (six days is the average time for symptoms to appear). By day nine or ten, far fewer people would be heading to doctors with worsening symptoms. If COVID-19 tests were performed right away, we would expect the positives to drop clearly on day ten or eleven (assuming quick turnarounds on tests).
To judge from the evidence, the answer is clear: Mandated lockdowns had little effect on the spread of the coronavirus. The charts below show the daily case curves for the United States as a whole and for thirteen U.S. states. As in almost every country, we consistently see a steep climb as the virus spreads, followed by a transition (marked by the gray circles) to a flatter curve. At some point, the curves always slope downward, though this wasn’t obvious for all states until the summer.
Read the whole thing.
October 4, 2020
WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday: In Which Colorado, New Jersey, and Especially Louisiana All Outdo Florida.
I LIKE THE CUT OF HER JIB: Secretly Recorded Conversations Reveal Exasperated First Lady Melania Trashing Media.