UGH: Three killed in Baghdad protests as military bans live ammunition. “Iraq’s military says security forces have been ordered not to use live fire on demonstrators as UN voices criticism.”
MORE: Iraqi forces kill four protesters in Baghdad, southern port blocked.
PREDICTIONS ARE HARD, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE FUTURE: 2019 as Precursor to 2020? Results Say Yes, No, and Maybe.
JOHN ADAMS: Mining ‘The Green New Deal.’
If these energy technologies are to be the ships, tanks and planes of this modern mobilization, consider what the American home front achieved during the war years. Author Victor Davis Hanson, writing on mobilization during WWII, observed that “American war production proved astonishing. At the huge Willow Run plant in Michigan, the Greatest Generation turned out a B-24 heavy bomber every hour. A single shipyard could mass-produce an ocean-going Liberty merchant ship from scratch in a week.”
At scale, this meant American industry provided almost two-thirds of all the Allied military equipment produced during the war. American factories produced 297,000 aircraft, 193,000 artillery pieces, 86,000 tanks and two million army trucks. In just a four-year period, America’s industrial production, already the world’s largest, doubled. No other country, ally or enemy, came close to equaling this effort.
America became a factory. Notably, U.S. resource self-sufficiency drove the engine of production. While oil, natural gas and coal proved essential to the effort, U.S. hardrock mines provided the critical minerals and metals needed for the dizzying array of materials required by the machines of war. America’s vast natural resources and our robust mining industries became the foundation upon which the mobilization could happen.
Today, the U.S. hardrock mining industry – absolutely essential to any green energy mobilization – is a shadow of the behemoth it once was. America’s vast mineral wealth still exists but hardrock mining has been the victim of adversarial policy that has pushed mining investment and production elsewhere. While complete self-sufficiency in this era of global interconnectedness is unnecessary, U.S. mineral import reliance is spiraling out of control, doubling over the past two decades.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. is now 100 percent import reliant for 18 essential minerals and 50 percent or more import reliant for another 30.
Given the modern Left’s hostility to any sort of domestic extraction industry, the Green New Deal looks just like every other attempt to “save” the climate: A massive transfer of wealth from the First World to the Second and Third.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Coming Soon to a Kitchen Near You: Scowling Greta.
LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR: The Berlin Wall Fell 30 Years Ago. Where Did It Go?
The wall spanned 96 miles, encircling West Berlin. It stood for nearly three decades until November 9, 1989, when East Germany suddenly opened its borders and crowds began tearing it down.
In the 30 years since, chunks of the wall have made their way to some 237 locations in more than 40 countries, according to records from a German government foundation tracking them.
The wall’s migration is surprising given the size and heft of its pieces. Most of the barrier was built from segments measuring roughly 12 feet high by 4 feet wide, and weighing 2.6 tons.
The wall was in fact two barricades: an inner wall facing East, and an outer wall facing West. Because the Eastern side was heavily guarded, graffiti was only on the outer segments.
Seeing the wall from both sides in 1984 gave me an appreciation for graffiti I’d never had before.
THE GUILD PROTECTS ITS OWN: NYT Columnist Condemns Facebook for … Adopting NYT’s Ad Policy.
ALSO: Just a reminder that intense interest has blown up the signup system for PJ’s new ad-free VIP content. That’s fantastic, but hold off for now and I’ll post an update once the tech crew has the kinks unkinked.
SKYROCKETS IN FLIGHT: The reasons the IG report has been delayed will delight Trump supporters.
According to Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, whose sources on the ongoing scandal have been excellent, the reasons behind the delay are entirely positive. Yesterday they appeared on Lou Dobbs’s show on Fox Business Network, and laid it out. The video is embedded below, but AT contributor Mark Wauck laid out the substance and transcribed key portions in his blog, Meaning in History.
So, the transcript in relevant part–which means, virtually all of it:
Victoria Toensing: I can tell you this, and we have darn good sources for this, it [the OIG FISA report] is going to be very bad for the people in the Obama administration. My source said to me, “It’s going to be worse than you can imagine.”
…
Joe diGenova: I would say explosive and I would say, for people at the highest levels of the FBI and at the highest levels of the Justice Department–more important at the Justice Department–it’s going to be devastating. It’s going to ruin careers, it’s going to make people have bar problems …
And count on it, if Durham is looking at the leak, he’s looking at everything to do with the Flynn case. And that means not just Comey and his gang of jokers, but Team Mueller, too.
I’m shivering with anticipation.
JOHN KASS: Jeffrey Epstein and Brett Kavanaugh, for ABC News, a tale of double standards.
Let’s remember what ABC, NBC and other media did to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing just a year ago, destroying his reputation, smearing him without evidence because he wasn’t on their political team.
Oh, you don’t want to go near Kavanaugh? Then just get off the bus, because I’m going there.
There is just no responsible way to discuss ABC’s alleged spiking of the Epstein story — or NBC’s spiking of the Harvey Weinstein story — without dealing with how those news networks, and other media outlets, worked frantically to destroy Kavanaugh.
Many in the media had one standard for Epstein and Weinstein, who had clout with Democrats including Bill and Hillary Clinton.
But Kavanaugh? He’s a Bush Republican nominated by President Donald Trump.
So that other standard was applied, one that allowed unsubstantiated allegations to be reported and repeated, endlessly, in an attempt to ruin him and keep him off the Supreme Court.It seems clear now, from the Ronan Farrow stories and other accounts, and from Robach’s hot mic take, that NBC and ABC showed great deference to Epstein and Weinstein.
Kass isn’t one to mince words, but “deference” is far too kind a descriptor for the act of providing friendly media cover to a serial sexual abuser and a serial child rapist.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Judging Trump on the Judges Edition. “Trump’s infusion of constitutionalist judges into the federal judiciary is a wall of sorts, a barrier keeping activists judges from reshaping American society according to the whims of fringe progressives. It may end up providing more security for America than the border wall, at least for a generation.”
Yes.
Plus:
You may have noticed the “Join VIP” graphic that appeared at the top of all of the PJ Media pages on Wednesday. We are in the middle of a soft launch of a new premium offering. There will be more details in the days to come as the technical issues are resolved. Here is some basic information, and some of the premium VIP content will begin showing up on the site today.
The economics of pageview-generated ad revenue never really meshed with quality writing, or the kinds of topics which drew people like Kruiser and me to blogging in the first place. Overall, the economic necessity of generating clickbait hasn’t been kind to the right side of the blogosphere, and skittish advertizing algos have forced us to either preemptively demonetize or avoid some topics completely. That’s a lousy way to have to run a commentary site. But on the ad-free VIP section of all the Townhall sites, we’re focusing on quality, and can cover any topics we choose. Best of all, the content you have to choose from won’t be at the mercy Google’s algos.
If you decide to join, use the promo code VODKAPUNDIT and get a nice little discount.
UPDATE: Wow. There’s been enough interest that signups have blown up the signup system. That’s fantastic, but hold off for now and I’ll post an update once the tech crew has the kinks unkinked.
WELL, I CERTAINLY HOPE SO: Warren’s Medicare For All: The Longest Political Suicide Note In Recorded History.
OH: Testimony Transcript Shows William Taylor Never Talked To Trump, Wasn’t Even On July 25 Phone Call. “A top anti-Trump witness for House Democrats admitted he wasn’t on the July 25 phone call and had never even spoken with Trump about Ukraine military aid.”
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Michael Loftus on Cancel Culture: ‘We Just Started Fighting Back.’ “Loftus knew their conservative tour would draw a fair share of Red State fans, but the enthusiasm caught him flat footed.”
YOU CAN’T WIN IF YOU DON’T PLAY: GOP Slammed Fairfax County Sheriff Over ICE Policy But Didn’t Run a Candidate Against Her.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Lefty Pundits to Democratic Presidential Field: ‘You’re Losers!’ “What is it that lefty pundits can see that Democratic presidential candidates — with all their highly-paid teams of election experts — can’t? How to win an election, apparently.”
I promise I’m not getting cocky.
NOT A GOOD LOOK FOR TIM COOK: Apple and TikTok skipped a Senate hearing on Big Tech and China, and empty seats show lawmakers aren’t pleased.
The missing tech execs were given the “empty seat treatment,” according to Politico reporter Cristiano Lima, with their names prominently displayed on the vacant table and chair reserved for them.
Senator Josh Hawley has been one of the biggest critics of TikTok and of Big Tech in general, and he tweeted his disapproval at the companies that skipped the hearing.
Concerns about major tech companies’ connections to China have grown in the past year. Short video app TikTok, which has been download over 1 billion times, in particular has been scrutinized for allegedly censoring content that could anger the Chinese government. In September, The Guardian reported on internal TikTok documents instructing the moderators to censor politically fraught topics including Tiananmen Square and an independent Tibet. The company said that these guidelines were no longer in use, and that the Chinese government has no control over them, because the app does not operate in China.
Then why not testify that to Congress?
BIG LABOR, BIG LOSS: Jury Rules Against ILWU in Portland Container Terminal Case.
After more than seven years of civil litigation, a federal jury has ruled that a dispute over which union got to plug and unplug reefer containers was a substantial part of the reason that the port of Portland, Oregon lost all of its containerized ocean freight services.
In a judgement entered in part on Monday, the jury ruled that alleged unlawful labor practices by the International Longshore Workers’ Union and its Local 8 were a substantial factor in causing $94 million in damage to Portland’s container terminal operator, ICTSI, which pulled out of its contract with the port in 2017.
The National Labor Relations Board previously determined that the ILWU had organized slowdowns at ICTSI’s Portland terminal in order to force the Port of Portland to give longshoremen the work of plugging and unplugging reefers – a task normally assigned to the Port’s union electricians, IBEW Local 48.
This kind of work-rules crap went a long way towards putting American carmakers into their longterm decline.
BLUE ON BLUE: Steyer staffer quits after accessing Harris data in South Carolina. “The Steyer campaign announced the resignation of Dwane Sims, the campaign’s deputy South Carolina state director, after initially placing him on administrative leave over the weekend. Sims previously worked for the South Carolina Democratic Party as a voter file manager with access to campaigns’ proprietary data.”
To what end? What benefit was the going-nowhere Steyer campaign going to get from the all-but-over Harris campaign?
ON THIS DAY 80 YEARS AGO, NAZI GERMANY BEGINS ‘SONDERAKTION KRAKOW’: Sonderaktion Krakau was the codename for a Nazi German operation against professors and academics of the Jagiellonian University and other universities in Nazi occupied Kraków, Poland, at the beginning of World War II. It was carried out as part of the much broader action plan, the Intelligenzaktion, to eradicate the Polish intellectual elite especially in those centres (such as Kraków) that were slated by the Nazis to become culturally German.
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