WOW: America’s Missile That Uses Sword Blades Instead Of Explosives Has Struck Again In Syria. “For the second time this week, the secretive AGM-114R9X Hellfire missile has punched a hole through a car’s roof and sliced its target to death.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
December 9, 2019
I HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA WHICH GOP SENATORS WOULD BE HAPPY TO HANG SEPARATELY: Republicans Lack The Votes To Call Trump Impeachment Trial Witnesses: “That proceeding, however, is also full of unknowns. At a meeting with senior White House officials and senators in the Roosevelt Room of the White House almost three weeks ago, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, made clear that there are not enough Senate votes to approve some of the edgier witnesses that Democrats and Republicans want to call. While he mentioned no names, it was interpreted by those in the room to refer to people like Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president, whom Mr. Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate.”
December 8, 2019
December 6, 2019
‘ANY PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY’ PUT TO THE TEST: Creeper Christmas Ad Tanks Peloton Stock, Company Still Defends It.
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS THE NARRATIVE: Islamist Cover-Up? Media Silent After Imam Fired in Sexual Assault Scandal.
OF COURSE SHE DID: Rashida Tlaib Headlined Anti-Semitic Hate Fest. “Tlaib headlined the American Muslims for Palestine’s (AMP) 2020 election conference late last month in Chicago. The freshman lawmaker, known for her routine criticism of Israel and its supporters, shared the stage with a who’s who of leading anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, including Bernie Sanders surrogate Linda Sarsour.”
Is leftism inherently antisemitic, or are purveyors of group-identity politics just natural political allies?
COLD WAR II: Forget Trump — Huawei Now Has A Major New Problem In China.
Two issues have hit the company in the last week—they are unrelated but share a common theme: Total Dependence on China to ride out the U.S. blacklist, it seems, may not be such smooth sailing after all. Huawei needs to keep Beijing and China’s consumers onside—and that may be harder than it once seemed.
Recent hard hitting allegations that Huawei is more involved in the surveillance operations in Xinjiang than it has said in the past would ordinarily prompt the company to step back to shore up its reputation and image overseas. But it cannot risk any kind of snub to Beijing. And, closer to home, there is also now a viral backlash on social media against Huawei’s perceived treatment of a former employee who was jailed for crimes against the company. The timing could not be worse.
The modern parts of China’s industrial base give it strengths the Soviet Union never enjoyed, but also new vulnerabilities.
“Smear.”
Editorializing in the headline of an ostensibly straight news piece isn’t a good look, CNBC.
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: All Aboard Hair Force One.
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Elon Musk’s lawyer asks cave explorer to apologize for insulting submarine.
NEWS YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T USE: Cannonball Run: Here’s how we made our car invisible to cops.
CLOSE THE DANGEROUS TAX-CUT GAP! Trump’s Tax Cuts Push U.S. Burden Lower in World. “Report says U.S. total tax rate lowest among grouping of major economies except Ireland, Chile and Mexico.”
Driven by the federal tax cut that Congress and Mr. Trump enacted at the end of 2017, U.S. taxes at all levels of government fell to 24.3% of gross domestic product in 2018, down from 26.8% a year earlier and 25.9% in 2016.
That 2.5 percentage-point drop was only the fourth time since 1995 that any country’s tax burden has declined by at least that much in one year outside of the financial crisis, according to OECD, an intergovernmental economic organization with 36 member countries including the U.S.
The steepness of the decline stemmed partly from an increase in 2017, when a one-time tax from the 2017 law was counted as revenue that year.
Measured as a share of the U.S. economy, taxes are now 10 percentage points below the 2018 OECD average of 34.3%. Among 34 countries with preliminary 2018 data, the U.S. tax burden is lower than everywhere except Chile, Ireland and Mexico. The tax cut drove U.S. taxes below Turkey’s, and taxes in France and Denmark are now nearly twice what they are in the U.S.
But there’s still a long way to go, when we’re getting beaten by the likes of Mexico, Chile, and Ireland. We can do this, America!
BOY CAN’T HELP IT: Bloomberg Pushes More Useless, Stupid Ideas on ‘Gun Control.’
I’M NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS… BUT IT’S ALIENS: No One Knows Why Rocks Are Exploding From Asteroid Bennu.
POSTMODERN DIPLOMACY: North Korea revives ‘dotard’ label in warning to Trump over ‘Rocket Man’ remarks.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Impeachment Is Quite the Cash Cow for President Trump.
The timing is really impressive. The sound from Pelosi’s voice had barely died down after her announcement yesterday when I got two texts asking me for money to help fight the impeachment witch hunt.
It doesn’t take a lot of deep political thought to see where this is headed. Even if the Democrats in the House vote to impeach — and it still isn’t a given that they’ll have the votes — the Senate will never convict.
The president, however, may end up with a campaign war chest the likes of which no incumbent has ever seen.
Impeach him, and he shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
GOOD: Trump Administration Drops Plans For Mandatory Face Scans of Citizens.
The agency has been testing facial recognition screening at several airports, though U.S. citizens and permanent residents are currently allowed to opt out.
At airports, officials take photos of travelers and a computer then compares them to the traveler’s passport image or other photos that the agency stores in the cloud. In some places, screening technology is used during the boarding process for nonresidents departing the U.S.
The technology has also been tested at seaports and border crossings, including on the southern border.
But privacy advocates have pointed to a June data breach as one of the reasons that the agency should not collect the information. DHS last summer acknowledged a cyberattack against a contractor that exposed the photos and license plates of nearly 100,000 people traveling in and out of the country at a border crossing.
It’s nice not to follow China’s footsteps on this one.
ASKING THE QUESTIONS LITERALLY NO ONE IS ASKING: Is Melania Trump sending coded messages, or are we just talking to ourselves?
WaPo, so not worth your click. Just thought you should know what passes for Style-section soft news these days.
YOU STAY CLASSY, JOE: Voter attacked by Biden calls him ‘senile’ and says he should drop out of 2020 race. “You see it on the TV? I know you do. By the way, that’s why I’m not sedentary … The reason I’m running is that I’ve been around a long time, and I know more than most people know, and I can get things done. That’s why I’m running. And if you wanna check out my shape on, let’s do push-ups together, man. Let’s run; let’s do whatever you want to do.”
SAYS THE WOMAN TRYING TO OVERTURN THE RESULTS OF AN ELECTION: ‘Our democracy is what is at stake.’ Pelosi says House will draft impeachment articles against Trump.