KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Another Step in the Joe Biden Impeachment Slow Dance. “Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media have been insisting that there is no evidence which indicates that Joe Biden was involved in any of his son’s foreign grifting. They’re going at it so hard that it makes it appear that they’re certain that there is most definitely something to be found.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
December 13, 2023
NO ONE’S LIFE, LIBERTY, PROPERTY, OR PRIVACY IS SAFE WHILE THE LEGISLATURE IS IN SESSION: The Trojan Horse That Would Force Your Barista To Spy on You.
Even more outrageous is a problematic provision tucked away in this “reform” bill but not so much as mentioned in the committee’s report. Section 504 of the House Intelligence bill requires that those who have access to the “equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store such communications” shall be treated as “electronic communication service providers” and thus subject to Section 702’s general requirement to (secretly) disclose our data to the government.
Let us unpack this: Under current law, electronic communication service providers include Internet service providers such as Google, Facebook/Meta, and Microsoft. It also includes telecom providers such as AT&T and Verizon. Under the law, these big companies are routinely compelled to hand over billions of foreign communications in addition to vast amounts of Americans’ communications that are “incidentally” caught up in this surveillance net.
But the House Intelligence bill’s expansion to include “equipment” would cover, for example, any small or medium-sized business that simply provides Wi-Fi or stores data. This means that your business landlord, Airbnb host, hotel manager, or coffee shop barista will have a legal obligation to give the government any of your emails, texts, or phone metadata that ran through their equipment. Larger entities, such as data centers, would also be enlisted in spying on Americans.
Send your congresscritter a message that the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act is unacceptable.
DAVID KOPEL: Law Enforcement Officers Are Part of “the People,” Not Above Them.
Two weeks ago, I filed an amicus brief in U.S. District Court in Colorado, in Gates v. Polis, a case challenging the Colorado legislature’s 2013 ban on magazines over 15 rounds. The brief was on behalf of Sheriffs and law enforcement training organizations: the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Colorado Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association, the Western States Sheriffs Association, 10 elected Colorado County Sheriffs, and the Independence Institute (where I work).
Some of the brief explains the practical mechanics of armed self-defense, and why bans on standard magazines do not impair mass shooters, but do endanger ordinary citizens, especially when attacked by multiple criminals. Another part of the brief shows that the key data created by some of the Colorado Attorney General’s expert witnesses is obviously false.
But in this post, I will focus on a more fundamental argument in the brief. The law enforcement amici reject the claim that arms universally recognized as appropriate for ordinary law enforcement officers should be banned for ordinary citizens.
Indeed.
I’d add that I know of at least one Colorado gun shop that openly sells banned magazines, frequently to LEOs.
I NEEDED MY ACTUAL SHOCKED FACE FOR THIS ONE: Amazing! Biden DOJ Successfully Prosecutes Antifa Terrorist Who Firebombed Pro-Life Office.
December 12, 2023
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS SOME DEAN MARTIN RECORDS: 10 Modern Christmas Recordings to Avoid This Year (and Every Year).
REPUBLICANS POUNCE! GOP smells blood in the water in elite school antisemitism controversy. “Republicans hostile to the way elite universities shape the nation’s cultural and political debates are smelling blood in the water after a disastrous hearing in which the presidents of three schools refused to say students who called for the genocide of Jews would be disciplined.”
Republicans are hostile to genocide and that’s problematical.
WELL… THEY’LL DECIDE WHETHER TO HOLD A FORMAL IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY, BUT JOE ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE WITHOUT A SHOVE FROM THE CABAL THAT INSTALLED HIM: The House Will Decide Biden’s Fate This Week.
JOANNE JACOBS: The young and the senseless.
Only 7 percent of Americans agree the Holocaust never happened, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll. But the number soars for those ages 18-29: Eight percent “strongly agree” and 12 percent “tend to agree” it’s a myth.
Young Americans also are more likely (23 percent) than their elders to say the Holocaust was “exaggerated,” and that Jews have “too much power in America” (28 percent).
Somin thinks people who aren’t sure what “Holocaust” refers to might choose “tend to agree” on the theory that they’d know about it if it really happened. And young people know a lot less history, politics and economics than their elders.
Previously: Man, These White House Interns Really Blow.
“We, the undersigned Fall 2023 White House and Executive Office of the President interns, will no longer remain silent on the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people…”
Oh, do shut up.
“We heed the voices of the American people and call on the Administration to demand a permanent ceasefire…”
Seriously, “shut up and get coffee, intern,” as Caleb Howe quipped.
What really curdles my cream is how proud NBC News seems to be about having nabbed this non-story. The website had to tell readers twice that the letter was “first shared with NBC News” in this “exclusive” report. “Run along now, children,” would have been the proper response — not a big-name, Jonathan Allen report with EXCLUSIVE blazoned above the headline in an ALL CAPS red flag.
This juxtaposition is beautiful — and almost certainly unintentional. “We are not the decision makers of today,” they wrote in a moment that caused me to shout “No s***?” loud enough to frighten my Golden, “but we aspire to be the leaders of tomorrow.”
The would-be leaders of tomorrow don’t know very much, including the fact that they don’t know very much.
THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS, ENDLESS COMPLAINTS ABOUT TRUMP’S THREAT TO “MUH DEMOCRACY” NOTWITHSTANDING: ‘Election Interference’: Lawyer Bashes Jack Smith’s Plea to SCOTUS on Trump Immunity.
LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: Just One More Hyped Up Jobs Report.
Peter [Schiff] pointed out that the ADP private payroll data released earlier in the week came out worse than expected. So, who are you going to believe?
The estimate for the ADP report was 123,000 new private sector jobs and the number came in at 103,000. Inside that number, the economy lost 15,000 manufacturing jobs.
Those are good jobs.Those are the productive jobs that we need, and they have higher pay. Probably, the people who lost those manufacturing jobs, well, maybe they got a couple of part-time jobs working in a restaurant or in a hotel, or doing something to replace the paycheck that they lost. But they need two or three jobs, and that’s the story of this so-called strong labor market — people replacing good jobs with multiple bad jobs.”
The ADP report also showed a drop in leisure and hospitality jobs. That sector has driven recent job growth.
Plus: “Of the 199,000 jobs the BLS claims the economy created, about 24% were auto workers and motion picture workers returning to their jobs after strikes.”
THE UN HAS NO SHAME: ‘Shame on the UN’: Israeli Ambassador Bashes Hypocrisy on Human Rights Day.
THE ROT RUNS DEEP: Claudine Gay gets show of support from Harvard Alumni Association, faculty.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dumb and Drunker — Team Biden Wants Hillary’s Help. “This week, I really didn’t think that I would read anything more ridiculous than the story about Vivek Ramaswamy bringing a hot mic into the Little Republican’s room while he did his business. Then Matt wrote a story about just how desperate Joe Biden’s handlers are.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Voters are ‘feeling horrible’ about Biden economy, confusing some political experts.
Voters are “feeling horrible” about the economy under President Biden as the 2024 presidential election nears, confusing some experts, according to a new report.
“Things are getting better and people think things are going to get worse — and that’s the most dangerous piece of this,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told the Associated Press.
Lake also said that voters want prices to fall, not just inflation. “Honestly, I’m kind of mystified by it,” she said.
Maybe she could try reading the Wall Street Journal: The Math for Buying a Home No Longer Works. These Charts Show You Why.
It is now less affordable than any time in recent history to buy a home, and the math isn’t changing any time soon. Home prices aren’t expected to go back to prepandemic levels. The Federal Reserve, which started raising rates aggressively early last year to curb inflation, hasn’t shown much interest in cutting them. Mortgage rates slipped to about 7% last week, the lowest in several months, but they are still more than double what they were two years ago.
Typically, high mortgage rates slow down home sales, and home prices should soften as a result. Not this time. Home sales are certainly falling, but prices are still rising—there just aren’t enough homes to go around. The national median existing-home price rose to about $392,000 in October, the highest ever for that month in data that goes back to 1999.
Or the friendlier Washington Post: New cars, once part of the American Dream, now out of reach for many.
Under Bidenomics, the median income no longer buys the median home or the median new car. The middle class as we’ve known it for 75 years is fading fast — while the White House assures things are better than ever.
IT’S LIKELY EITHER THAT OR WATCH INFLATION COME ROARING BACK STRONGER THAN BEFORE: The Fed watcher who called the 2007 housing bubble expects interest rates to stay high for ‘much, much, much longer.’ It’s payback for the unsustainable ‘free money era.’
In order to help the economy recover after the GFC, the Fed held interest rates near zero and instituted a policy called quantitative easing (QE)—where it bought government bonds and mortgage-backed securities in hopes of spurring lending and investment. Together, these policies created what is now known colloquially as the ”free money” era, pumping trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of low-interest-rate debt.
Grant has long argued the Fed’s post-GFC policies helped blow up an “everything bubble” in stocks, real estate, and, well, everything. And even after equities’ rough year in 2022, real estate’s two-year slowdown, and a regional banking crisis this March, he still fears that that bubble has only partially deflated.
While the banking and commercial real estate sectors have been hit hard by rising interest rates, Grant’s biggest fear involves credit markets.
Washington having to re-fi ZIRP-era debt at much higher rates is juicing federal spending that was crazy to begin with.
THE TUCKER CARLSON NETWORK: Tucker Carlson Reveals His New Media Venture.
December 11, 2023
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The China Trap (And Ours). “You need to see how China has become so deeply weird — a still-developing economy with all the baggage of a fully developed economy like ours.”
STILL NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: EV Push Worries Car Dealers Facing Disillusioned Buyers.
As inventories of electric cars grow faster than sales, car dealers are feeling increasingly discouraged by their prospects, according to a quarterly survey from Cox Automotive, the parent company of Kelley Blue Book. A dealer sentiment index derived from the survey shows sales expectations haven’t been lower since at least 2021, when Cox first started asking about EVs.
“The excitement that existed a year ago around EVs has definitely faded,” Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke said in a news release last week. “The EV transition is requiring more effort from dealers than before, so it makes sense that enthusiasm has declined.”
Electric vehicle sales are growing — a record of over 300,000 vehicles represented a 50% increase in the third quarter — but they still make up less than 8% of total car sales in the U.S., according to Cox. In interviews with the Wall Street Journal, auto dealers said customers are reluctant to switch to all-electric cars over concerns about price, reliability and a dearth of charging stations.
Biden wants EVs to make up half of all new car sales by 2030 — and if he can crush gas-powered sales down hard enough, he might just make it!
Since the first silo-based Minuteman went on alert at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base on Oct. 27, 1962 — the day Cuba shot down a U-2 spy plane at the height of the Cuban missile crisis — the missile has “talked” to its operators through thousands of miles of hard-wiring in cables buried underground.
Those Hardened Intersite Cable Systems, or HICS, cables carry messages back and forth from the missile to the missileer, who receives those messages through a relatively new part of the capsule — a firing control console called REACT, for Rapid Execution and Combat Targeting, that was installed in the mid-1990s.
It’s a closed communication loop, and a very secure one that brings its own headaches. Any time the Air Force wants to test one of the missiles, it literally has to dig up the cables and splice them, to isolate that test missile’s wiring from the rest. Over decades of testing, there are now hundreds of splices in those critical loops.
But it’s also one of the Minuteman’s best features. You would need a shovel — and a lot more — to try to hack the system. Even when missile crews update targeting codes, it is a mechanical, manual process.
Minuteman is “a very cyber-resilient platform,” said Col. Charles Clegg, the Sentinel system program manager.
Clegg said cybersecurity for the software-driven Sentinel has been a top focus of the program, one that has all of their attention.
“Like Minuteman, Sentinel will still operate within a closed network. However, to provide defense in depth, we will have additional security measures at the boundary and inside the network, enabling our weapon system to operate effectively in a cyber-contested environment,” Clegg said.
Here’s to hoping we don’t end up missing HICS and all those eight-inch floppies.