OH, COME ON: ‘Comfortably Smug’ Twitter Account Banned For Asking ‘Where’s Hunter, Fat?’
Easy prediction: We’ll see a lot more of this as November approaches.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
February 3, 2020
WELL, HE IS. Trump on Bernie: ‘He’s a Communist!’
FUTURE-PROOF: With laser weapons coming, the US Navy’s newest super carrier has space and power to spare.
Still, I’d feel better if they’d just get the weapons elevators working properly.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for February 3, 2020. “The Iowa Caucuses are finally here today, Bernie panic wracks the DNC, a key poll mysteriously vanishes, Delaney drops Out, and one Biden staffer provides handy voter appreciation.”
THE FIX IS IN: DNC Boosting Bloomberg to Be Backup Nominee.
On Friday, the DNC eased requirements to qualify for future debates, despite a crowded primary field. Continetti said the gambit shows that the party is looking to the billionaire as Plan B if former vice president Joe Biden continues to struggle.
“If Bernie wins Iowa, he’s already very well positioned in New Hampshire. That will set the Democratic party on fire,” Continetti said during Fox News’s Special Report. “And that’s why I think you’ve had this rule changed to allow Mike Bloomberg into the debates. This is their insurance policy if the Biden campaign collapses.”
Vox populi, shut up.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Wins the Super Bowl. “President Trump could have run an ad just about the economy and it would have been difficult for the Democrats to push back against. Instead, the campaign decided to highlight his achievements in criminal justice reform which, as the ad points out, is one of those things that is always talked about by politicians but never acted upon.”
UNEXPECTEDLY: New York’s Progressive Rent Regulations Having the Exact Same Negative Consequence That Skeptics Predicted.
According to a January survey conducted by the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP)—a trade association representing owners of rent-stabilized buildings in New York City—69 percent of building owners have cut their spending on apartment upgrades by more than 75 percent since the passage of the state’s rent regulations. Another 11 percent of the landlords in the survey decreased investments in their properties by more than 50 percent.
The new law’s limits on recouping the costs of renovating apartments mean it is often more financially feasible to leave old apartments vacant.
“A big majority of our housing stock of stabilized units have been occupied between 40 and 50 years. These units require up to $100,000 and sometimes more, to complete a gut rehabilitation. You don’t need to be a genius to understand it makes no sense to invest that much only to get an $83.00 rent increase,” one survey respondent told CHIP.
CHIP, alongside the Rent Stabilization Association, is suing state and city officials over the new regulations.
The Commercial Observer reports that the new rent laws are encouraging small- and mid-sized landlords to exit the market entirely, writing that “many property owners have woken up to a world where their buildings are worth 30 to 50 percent less than they were a year ago.”
Easy prediction: Big, connected players will snap up these properties at a steep discount, at which point the city will grant relief and exemptions from the new regulations.
THE FIX IS IN: The Case of the Missing Poll. “Something stinks here. My guess is they saw something in the poll they didn’t want the public to see, mostly likely that Bernie Sanders was clobbering the other candidates, and CNN told them to pull the plug.”
Related: I’ll drunkblog the Iowa Caucuses returns tonight at the PJM mothership.
GO AWAY: Draft bill could penalize companies for using end-to-end encryption.
Politicians may be looking for a roundabout way to thwart end-to-end encryption. Senator Lindsey Graham is drafting a bill, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, that would modify the Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 to make companies liable in state criminal cases and civil lawsuits over child abuse and exploitation if they don’t follow practices set by a national commission. Some of these would be relatively uncontroversial, such as offering parental controls and setting age limits with disclosures. However, the bill also includes requirements to “preserve, remove from view, and report” material as well as retain evidence, and there’s a concern these could be used as pretexts for punishing the use of end-to-end encryption that would make some of this data inaccessible.
The draft does ask the commission to consider issues like privacy and security when establishing the practices. However, the 15-person commission would be led by the Attorney General, and current AG William Barr has been a vocal opponent of end-to-end encryption. As the draft law would let Barr modify the rules without a consensus, it wouldn’t take much for him to require a backdoor and thus weaken encryption for everyone by creating a hacker-friendly vulnerability.
Dumb.
DIGITAL BULLY: NYT Reporter Doxxes Brown University Football Coach for Criticizing Media in Private Message. “Schmidt has a large following on twitter, over 200 thousand, and used his large platform to dox an offensive coordinator for the Brown University football team, Vince Marino, who has a much smaller following of around 5k people. Schmidt did this because Marino sent him a polite criticism through a private message, which Schmidt then sent out to the world while also exposing his workplace to his rabid followers. Somehow, this does not violate Twitter’s policy of no ‘targeted harassment’.”
February 2, 2020
Anything for the good of the country, except give up a cushy gig.
UPDATE (From Ed): LOL! NBC analyst overheard John Kerry talking about how he could run for POTUS and save Dems from Bernie Sanders. The ol’ Winter Soldier denied it with an epic, but quickly deleted tweet:
(Kerry then retweeted the same statement, minus the F-bomb.)
WHEW: U.S. evacuees ‘relieved’ about quarantine on military base.
“Everybody was very relieved” about the quarantine order, McCoy said by telephone. “We wanted to make sure all the tests were done first.”
At the military base about 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, the evacuees are staying in hotel-style housing and have spent time walking and exercising, some wearing masks, said Jose Arballo Jr., a spokesman for the county’s public health agency.
As of Friday, none of the evacuees had shown signs of illness, he said.
Good.
January 31, 2020
BREAKING: Senate Votes Against Witnesses and Documents.
Related (From Ed): Senate Sets Wednesday Acquittal Vote In Trump Impeachment Trial.
PURE IMAGINATION: Willy Wonka Prequel to Feature a Woman as Title Character?
RETROACTIVELY WOKE IS THE WOKEST WOKE: ‘Right Side of History’: Taylor Swift Regrets Not Opposing Trump in 2016, New Documentary Reveals.
FOR PJMEDIA/TOWNHALL VIP MEMBERS: The Truth About Trump’s Middle East Peace: It’s the Foundation of an Anti-Iran Coalition. “Trump’s ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan only looks like the latest, doomed-to-fail attempt to end the struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What it really does is lay the foundation of an enlarged (and more cooperative) anti-Iran coalition. That’s why this time, finally, the Arab states are signing on to a peace proposal.”
It’s a brilliant plan, and I have all the details and analysis at the VIP link.
Membership is cheap, and it’s cheaper still with that lovely VODKAPUNDIT promo code.
OR YOU COULD JUST TAKE A BREAK FROM THE HEAVY NEWS: Florida Man Friday: One of Our States Is Missing. “The day may come when Florida Man fails to amuse, but it is not this day.”
TRUMP’S SUPERPOWER REALLY IS GETTING HIS OPPONENTS TO REVEAL THEIR INNER DUMBASSERY:
ALSO: Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to mockery:
On the flip side, Trump has made politics more fun for the rest of us than it’s been in decades.
It’s all over but the lamentations of the women Democrats, Progressives, and NeverTrumps.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Omar Paid Additional $215,000 From Campaign Coffers to Alleged Boyfriend’s Firm.
FASTER? PLEASE! Scramjet-Powered Cruise Missile Emerges As New U.S. Priority.