RIOT WHEN THEY LOSE, RIOT WHEN THEY WIN: French elections: Riots erupt after left-wing coalition projected to win plurality of seats.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 8, 2024
THEN THEY AREN’T THE INSIDERS THEY THINK THEY ARE: WH Insiders Reportedly Aren’t Sure How Involved Joe Biden Is in Decision-Making.
Of course, Jill and Hunter might be the only true “insiders” left.
NATE SILVER: Blaming the media is what got Democrats into this mess.
In their critiques of coverage of Biden’s age, then, progressive media scolds are like the dog who caught the car. They succeeded in getting the media to frame the issue gingerly — for every story that engaged forthrightly, there were two that dismissed it as “misinformation”, sometimes even inventing whole new categories like “cheap fakes” to describe what were simply lightly edited but unflattering video clips of Biden.
But having caught the car, the critics aren’t sure what to do with it. Because the car was a lemon. In hunting down bad vibes, the critics didn’t change the underlying reality — they only made the media seem out of touch. “Vibes theory”, the postmodernist strain that began with Rove but has now has a through-line to progressive media critics, fails when it comes to things the public can see with its own eyes, like Biden’s obviously deteriorating condition or the fact that prices are much higher than they were when Biden took office. Instead, the Democratic Party now finds itself in a state of crisis.
There’s a lot of excuse-mongering in Silver’s piece, probably because it’s difficult to accept that the “reality-based community” never was.
EUROPE: France Just Committed Suicide. “Books have and will be written on the subject of Europe’s self-loathing, a continent that decades ago gave up fighting vainly the old ennui — or much of anything else, for that matter.”
THE EV BUBBLE IS DEFLATING: Battery maker SK On declares ‘emergency’ as EV sales disappoint.
CRISIS BY DESIGN: U.S. Officials Wanted to Avoid Trump’s ‘Kids in Cages’ Problem. Doing So Created Another Dilemma.
In 2021, when the new Biden administration was struggling to cope with a sudden influx of unaccompanied migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border, the government repeatedly overrode the concerns of lower-level workers who warned about placing them in certain households, documents and interviews show.
“It does not appear safe for the minor to be released to a home environment that was not fully assessed,” a case worker wrote about a child slated to live in a hostel-like home in Florida with at least three adults. A few days later, an official dismissed the recommendation to reject the proposed guardian, according to internal government memos.
At another facility in Pomona, Calif., about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, more than 100 children that summer were sent to temporary guardians who were issued denials early in the process by case coordinators, according to a review of internal government data that tracks unaccompanied children, emails and other communications, and interviews with caseworkers.
About two dozen more denials were overturned because of clerical errors or issues such as missing fingerprints that were resolved, records show. But many of the others were approved with scant details explaining why. Some of those home addresses were tied to histories of criminal activity or other behavior that indicated the possibility the children would be put to work, interviews and records show. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine what happened to the children after they left the facility.
So sex trafficking and slavery mattered less to the White House than the optics of the crisis that they created.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN COLLAPSE TRACKER: The Senate Knives Come Out for Caesar. “Day Four is another big one for my Biden Campaign Collapse Tracker series, after what I’m calling the Long Holiday Weekend of Bad News That Wouldn’t Quit. The name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, I know — like Presidentish Joe Biden trying to read aloud a Dick & Jane book to a kindergarten class after 4 p.m.”
HE’S FINE: Comer Seeks Docs, Interview With White House Physician Who Obviously Lied. “On Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer demanded to interview O’Connor, and has suggested that the doctor’s involvement in a Biden family business dealing ‘may have’ influenced his medical assessments of the president – who was found to be too cognitively impaired to prosecute for mishandling classified documents.”
LEFTISM IS AN EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT: Democrats Push Depopulation as U.S. Fertility Plummets.
BECAUSE THEY’RE AFRAID HE’LL LOSE AND IT’S ALSO THEIR SAD ATTEMPT AT GETTING PEOPLE TO FORGET THEIR COMPLICITY. NEXT QUESTION? Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race?
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The DNC’s Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Been the Problem All Along. “The once precise Democratic National Committee has been caught up in the Trump Derangement Syndrome fugue state along with the rank and file Dems, and that’s how we got here. I was stunned when Biden announced that he would seek reelection. The DNC of old would have headed that off long before it got to the pass.”
WHEN YOU CAN’T COMPETE, COMPLAIN: SpaceX rivals raise concerns about Starship-Super Heavy coming to Florida.
SpaceX’s plan to launch its monstrous Starship-Super Heavy two-stage tandem from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center caught the attention — and concern — of two rival space companies that warn federal officials the up-to-492-foot-tall rocket will be too untested, too dangerous and too potentially disruptive for the nation’s busiest spaceport and the surrounding environment.
United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin — which both have significant footprints on the Space Coast and view SpaceX as direct competition — have submitted written concerns to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA is preparing an environmental impact statement to evaluate potential impacts of Starships launching up to 44 times a year from pad 39A at KSC. SpaceX is also eyeing a potential second Starship launch pad on adjacent Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“As the largest rocket in existence, an accident would inflict serious or even catastrophic damage, while normal launch operations would have a cumulative impact on structures, launch vehicle hardware, and other critical launch support equipment,” ULA officials wrote in a 22-page letter to the FAA.
“The other guy’s rocket is too big and powerful” might not be as convincing as ULA and Blue Origin hope it is.
VICTORIA TAFT: West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Antifa Goes Down Edition. “Let’s do a top-line assessment of what’s been going on this week. Antifa thugs finally get punished. Oakland is in still in freefall with fresh new crimes going un-responded to by the police. Gavin Newsom announces he’s “all in” with Joe Biden—and he’s starting a new business venture. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek discovers summer. And in Washington State, Seattle has a six-figure job for tree huggers.”
While unemployment is still historically low, its rate of increase could be a sign of deteriorating economic conditions. That’s where the so-called Sahm Rule comes in.
It says that when the three-month moving average of the jobless rate rises by at least a half-percentage point from its low during the previous 12 months, then a recession has started. This rule would have signaled every recession since 1970.
Based on the latest unemployment figures from the Labor Department’s monthly report on Friday, the gap between the two has expanded to 0.43 in June from 0.37 in May.
And: A key part of America’s economy has shifted into reverse.
Consumer demand seems to have tapered off so far this summer, according to surveys of American businesses that sell any kind of service to make a profit, ranging from restaurants to dental clinics. That weakness is also evident in the latest spending figures — a far cry from last year’s lucrative summertime spending spree when Americans shelled out for films and high-profile concerts.
The Institute for Supply Management’s latest monthly survey that gauges economic activity in the services sector showed that so-called new orders and overall economic activity unexpectedly slipped into contraction territory last month. The headline index fell to a reading of 48.8 in June from 53.8 in May as the new orders sub-index saw an even steeper decline, down to 47.3 from 54.1. (A reading above 50 indicates expansion while anything below that threshold points to a contraction.)
Previously: Payrolls Rise 206K After Huge Downward Revisions As Unemployment Rate Jumps To Three Year High. “In keeping with the BLS’ other favorite gimmick of representing part-time jobs growth as the primary driver of the US labor market, in June, the number of part-time workers rose 50K to 28.1 million while full-time workers dropped by 28K. This means that since June 2023, the US has added 1.8 million part-time jobs and lost 1.6 million full-time jobs.”
July 5, 2024
WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE, ANYWAY? ‘The President Has Lost All Independence.’ “Have readers ever heard of Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, or Ashley Williams? I’ve worked in politics for over 20 years now, and only Williams’ name seems vaguely familiar. Only Bernal’s name comes up in our archives, once almost exactly two years ago and only as brief mention in someone else’s statement. Presidents hire aides to help and support their work, but those aides are supposed to work for the president, not run him.”
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: Who’s our real president? Joe Biden — or the staffers who keep walking back his comments?
JOBS: Payrolls Rise 206K After Huge Downward Revisions As Unemployment Rate Jumps To Three Year High. “In keeping with the BLS’ other favorite gimmick of representing part-time jobs growth as the primary driver of the US labor market, in June, the number of part-time workers rose 50K to 28.1 million while full-time workers dropped by 28K. This means that since June 2023, the US has added 1.8 million part-time jobs and lost 1.6 million fulL-time jobs.”
I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT POTUS WAS SHARP, ENERGETIC, AND ON TOP OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING: Concerning Trend: Foreign Nationals Probing Military Bases While Commander-in-Chief Naps.
THE NEEDS OF THE PARTY ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE:
Joe Scarborough, a few months ago: Biden is better than he’s ever been.
Joe Scarborough, post-debate: Thank God it’s June, we have time to replace him. This is the last chance.
Joe Scarborough, now: Everyone slow down, it’s only July. There is plenty of time.
Incredible. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/AqdefetDkX
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 5, 2024
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Two Karens Meet in a Parking Lot… “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have a hard lesson in instant Karma delivered in a Publix parking lot, a case of penis-waving road rage, and a real-life five-year-old Florida hero.”