OH, HAPPY DAY! Clinton Foundation Files $16.8 MILLION Loss. “Newly released tax records show that the foundation reported a loss of almost $17 million in 2018, to add to the net loss of $16.1 million the previous year in 2017.”
Life gets pretty expensive when you have the spending habits of a plutocrat, but have run out of influence to peddle.
NARRATOR: IT ISN’T A HUGE DEAL. Here’s Why Kamala Harris Using Female Pronouns About The President Is A Huge Deal.
We’ve reached the absurdist depths of wokeness, where any action more advanced than not eating paste must be heralded as a major accomplishment when it’s performed by the “right” people.
WHERE DID I LEAVE ALL THOSE NUCLEAR-TIPPED INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILES? Air Force’s Inventory Listed Wrong Sites for 79 Nuclear Missiles.
GOOD LORD: Amnesty says at least 106 killed in Iran protests.
“Video footage shows security forces using firearms, water cannons and tear gas to disperse protests and beating demonstrators with batons,” Amnesty said. “Images of bullet casings left on the ground afterwards, as well as the resulting high death toll, indicate that they used live ammunition.”
Amnesty, citing eyewitnesses corroborated by video footage, said snipers also shot into crowds of people from rooftops and, in one case, a helicopter.
So far, scattered reports in state-run and semiofficial media have reported only six deaths.
The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier issued a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” about reports of live ammunition being used against demonstrators. It also urged protesters to demonstrate peacefully.
“We are especially alarmed that the use of live ammunition has allegedly caused a significant number of deaths across the country,” spokesman Rupert Colville said in a statement.
Colville added that it has been “extremely difficult” to verify the overall death toll.
The Mullahs don’t have Obama to bail them out this time.
GREAT, SO NOW WE’RE SUPPOSED TO WORRY ABOUT THIS, TOO? Why the world is running out of sand.
The problem lies in the type of sand we are using. Desert sand is largely useless to us. The overwhelming bulk of the sand we harvest goes to make concrete, and for that purpose, desert sand grains are the wrong shape. Eroded by wind rather than water, they are too smooth and rounded to lock together to form stable concrete.
The sand we need is the more angular stuff found in the beds, banks, and floodplains of rivers, as well as in lakes and on the seashore. The demand for that material is so intense that around the world, riverbeds and beaches are being stripped bare, and farmlands and forests torn up to get at the precious grains. And in a growing number of countries, criminal gangs have moved in to the trade, spawning an often lethal black market in sand.
“The issue of sand comes as a surprise to many, but it shouldn’t,” says Pascal Peduzzi, a researcher with the United Nations Environment Programme. “We cannot extract 50 billion tonnes per year of any material without leading to massive impacts on the planet and thus on people’s lives.”
The main driver of this crisis is breakneck urbanisation. Every year there are more and more people on the planet, with an ever growing number of them moving from the rural countryside into cities, especially in the developing world.
What we have here is yet another Third World problem for which the West will be asked to pony up to solve.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Does the Left Hate America?
AS SURELY AS NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY: Warren Relies on Rationing in Medicare for All Plan. “Cost-cutting measures would likely lead to long wait-times, limited care.”
“The more radical part of [Warren’s plan] is the very, very bold rationing scheme for health care,” Pope, a scholar at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, told the Free Beacon. “A big part of how she tries to make the numbers work is really very tightly restricting access to care and funding of health care services.”
Warren’s campaign, which did not respond to request for comment, has avoided using the word “rationing,” likely because it believes the idea would be unpopular. But, as the Massachusetts senator pushes towards the presidency, other Democratic contenders and the public at large may force her to answer hard questions about what single-payer health care requires.
As experts have noted, Warren’s plan relies on optimistic assumptions about the cost of implementing Medicare for All. Her campaign predicts the proposal will add about $20.5 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, which is about $14 trillion short of the liberal-leaning Urban Institute’s estimate.
To shave that $14 trillion off, the plan must drastically curtail spending.
Care will to go to people who have the necessary pull.
RELATED: Democrats like Medicare for All, but swing voters don’t.
WELL, ASSUMING ANYONE HAS BEEN PAYING ATTENTION: The Televised Impeachment Proceedings Have Been A Disaster For Democrats.
An initial glimpse at the coverage of the proceedings from the corporate media presents a startling situation for the White House. “Testimony puts Trump closer to scandal,” read one headline from the Washington Post. “Democrats land damning new evidence in testimony,” blasted a headline from Politico. “Testimony builds case against Trump,” reads another in the Los Angeles Times.
The most explosive revelations to emerge from three of the Democrats’ most important witnesses? That the Ukrainians were getting closer to rooting out corruption in their government and launching an investigation into the origins of its role in peddling the grand Russian collusion hoax that did irreparable harm to the United States.
There’s a huge disconnect here between what the MSN-DNC thinks is important, and the American people.
THIS COULD GET INTERESTING: Spain Orders Extradition of Venezuela’s Ex-Intelligence Chief to U.S.
FOXY BROWN, ELLEN RIPLEY, SARAH CONNOR, JORDAN O’NEIL, NIKITA, LEELOO, DIANA PRINCE, ET AL, COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: The ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Director Blames it Tanking on Men Not Wanting to Watch a Movie Starring Women.
GUESS WHO WON: Axe-Wielding Burglar Meets Shotgun-Holding Homeowner.
IMPEACHMENT’S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHIN’ LEFT TO LOSE: Schiff Distorts Morrison Transcript, Omits Pro-Trump Parts.
NEWT GINGRICH: Democrats Have a Pathological Need to Destroy Trump.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: DNC to POLITICO: We Can’t Have a Debate at Our Debates. “POLITICO’s Tim Alberta got his start writing for National Review, which means that the Democratic National Committee is pretty sure that he is radioactive, a brain-eating zombie, and quite possibly a carrier of the deadly Ebola virus. Now that POLITICO wants to bring Alberta on as a debate moderator, the Dems are throwing another self-defeating hissy-fit. It’s their way.”
Read the whole thing, if you don’t mind me saying so myself.
That’s from my regular daily column at PJMedia — my next thrice-weekly VIP column isn’t due until tomorrow. But if you’re interested in our additional VIP content, the promo code VODKAPUNDIT is still good for a nice little discount.
SCIENCE FRICTION: This new magical coating saves water by making toilets so slippery that poop basically flushes itself.
Something exactly like this was a minor plot device 45 years ago in Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for November 19, 2019. “Patrick jumps in, Bloomberg is running Heisenberg’s Campaign, Buttigieg is up big in Iowa, Warren falls, Tulsi draws all the boys to the yard, and Biden won’t puff or pass.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Chick-fil-A Caved to the Wokescolds…OR DID THEY? “Anyone who has been paying any attention knows that just because the Right is unhappy doesn’t mean that the Left is. That’s primarily because they are incapable of not complaining. In the case of LGBTQ issues, however, unless you’ve given up your children for gender reassignment before they’ve reached the age of six, you aren’t doing enough to make them happy.”
GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS: Penn women’s volleyball team has season canceled over ‘vulgar’ posters in locker room.
“The decision to cancel the remainder of the season was made following the discovery of vulgar, offensive, and disrespectful posters in the women’s volleyball locker room earlier this week,” the school said in a press release. “These actions were in violation of team and Divisional policy and this matter has been referred to University administration for further review in accordance with University policy.”
M. Grace Calhoun, the Ivy League school’s director of athletics, said the student-athletes’ behavior “is simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
“We expect our student-athletes to represent the University of Pennsylvania in a first-class and respectful manner at all times, and in this case, our women’s volleyball student-athletes did not meet that standard,” Calhoun said. “We have reviewed the matter with the appropriate University partners and will determine additional steps in the coming days and weeks.”
It’s unclear what the vulgar messages were and if they were aimed at anyone in particular.
They were in the locker room where the public couldn’t see them, so who cares?
FASTER, PLEASE: Scientists 3-D Print Skin That Develops Working Blood Vessels. “A promising new technique could lead to lasting skin grafts after burns or other injuries.”
CHANGE: Pompeo announces reversal of longstanding US policy on Israeli settlements.
“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate… the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” Pompeo said, citing President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 assessment that the settlements were not “inherently illegal.”
Pompeo said the US government is “expressing no view on the legal status of any individual settlement” or “addressing or prejudging the ultimate status of the West Bank.”
Having thrown away every chance for peace they’ve been offered, the Palestinians have no one to blame but themselves.
LIKE MANY SO-CALLED EXPERTS, HIS EXPERTISE DIDN’T APPLY MUCH TO THE REAL WORLD: University of Miami Money-Laundering Expert Charged With Money Laundering.
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