HE GOT A LOT OF BAD PRESS: Count Dracula: Undead Bloodsucker or Anti-Jihad Hero? “Before the world learned about fake news, there was fake history, and its goal was always the same: to demonize Western elements by exaggerating and stripping them of context and, above all, expunging or demonizing their Christian aspects while leaving aggressive Islam out of the equation.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
October 31, 2023
I THINK WE KNOW HOW THIS TURNS OUT: California Democrats Disarm Synagogues. “Well, it’s not like any particular houses of worship are under particular threats from particular terrorist organizations, now is it?”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: In Today’s Lefty Public Temper Tantrum News… “We might have a new winner in the ongoing Lefty-Hamas Alliance for Crybully Public Temper Tantrums contest.”
MORE HOSTAGES: Hamas blocks foreign nationals from leaving Gaza. “The Egyptians are prepared to let Americans and other foreign nationals out of Gaza. The Israelis have no issue with that. But Hamas is preventing their departure and making a series of demands.”
JAW, JAW IS BETTER THAN WAR, WAR: Russia Finally ‘Ready’ for Ukraine Peace Talks.
Shoigu made the remarks at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, China’s largest military diplomacy event, saying that Russia is also ready for talks on further “co-existence” with the West, but said Western countries needed to stop seeking the strategic defeat of his country.
The prospect of peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow have been raised multiple times since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Kremlin has specified a few conditions that are non-negotiable for Russia, including that Ukraine must accept the September 2022 annexation of four of its regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—following referendums called by Putin that were deemed illegal by the international community.
Ukraine has said that any peace deal must invalidate the September 2022 annexations of its territory, and that the Crimean Peninsula, which Putin annexed in 2014, must once again be considered part of Ukraine.
Maybe there’s room for compromise now that it’s clear Russia isn’t going to conquer Ukraine and Ukraine isn’t going to win back everything Russia has taken since 2014.
But that’s a very slim maybe. Nationalists on both sides don’t want to compromise, and a “frozen conflict” that keeps Ukraine weak and unstable is much more in Putin’s interest than a formal peace.
SUSTAINABILITY: Treasury to borrow $776 billion in the final three months of the year. “The borrowing level appeared to be somewhat below Wall Street expectations — strategists at JPMorgan Chase said they expected the announcement to be around $800 billion.”
Before you decide that’s good news, there’s this: “The Monday announcement comes 10 days after the government said the fiscal 2023 budget deficit would be about $1.7 trillion. That was an increase of some $320 billion from the prior year.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Welcome to Our New Site, and Maybe Jill Biden Is Sauron. “As long as she gets power, access, and a curious amount of money for a teacher, she doesn’t care if her husband’s sad and rapid decline is witnessed by everyone on Earth.”
NOT ANTIWAR, JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: Yale campus newspaper censors pro-Israel writer’s column on Hamas beheading men, raping women.
The Yale Daily News last week cut out the reference from an Oct. 12 column by sophomore Sahar Tartak titled “Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?”
“I’m still collecting my thoughts on the YDN’s egregious correction,” Tartak, editor in chief of rival campus newspaper Yale Free Press, wrote on her X social media account on Monday.
She reposted a comment by a Yale professor, Nicholas Christakis, who asked: “Are the hostage-taking, murder of children in their beds, burning of people alive, and parading of nude captive women in the street also ‘unsubstantiated’?”
Previously: Ivy League among top recipients of $8.5 billion Arab funding.
But how much campus antisemitism is about the foreign money, and how much of it is due to homegrown leftism?
LONG PAST DUE: Czech Defense Minister: ‘Let’s Get Out’ of Pro-Hamas UN.
UNEXPECTEDLY: McDonald’s, Chipotle to raise menu prices in California next year as fast-food wages rise to $20.
McDonald’s has not decided how much it will hike prices in California as workers’ wages rise to $20 an hour, CEO Chris Kempczinski said Monday. Chipotle expects it will raise prices by a “mid-to-high single-digit” percentage in the state, but has not made a “final decision,” its Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung told analysts on the company’s conference call Thursday.
Restaurants have been hiking menu prices for more than two years in response to rising ingredient and labor costs. Prices for food away from home were up 6% in September compared to a year ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While diners are already used to paying more for their meals, some have been eating out less often to mind their budgets. McDonald’s executives said Monday that consumers making under $45,000 have been visiting less frequently, contributing to a dip in its U.S. traffic this quarter.
In September, the restaurant industry and labor groups ended an expensive, monthslong battle over a bill that would have created a 10-person council that governs fast-food chains in California by setting guidelines for working conditions and wages.
McDonald’s employees would have to work a little over 56 weeks (no vacations) to earn $45,000 — almost enough to belong to the elite group of earners who had to cut back on McDonald’s even before the next price hikes go through.
VICTORIA TAFT: Dirty Jill.
“You gotta run. Because there’s so much at stake,” Jill Biden claims she urged her shuffling, addled husband before he undertook his 2020 basement campaign for president. Joe Biden, like the entire country, economy, and everything he touches, has gotten worse every day of his term of office. And it’s for this reason that the woman fawned over as a “joy multiplier” is now looked on with suspicion. She’s the reason he’s one of the worst presidents the United States has ever produced because Mrs. Biden and the Obama holdovers got him there. Americans are beginning to think that Joe’s smiling, 72-year-old presidential arm candy didn’t have the country’s needs at heart when she told her husband, “You gotta run.” It’s in that way she reminds Americans of Hillary Clinton.
Call her Jillary.
The reasonable criticism goes that any person who pushes their mentally incapable husband to become president is naturally a bad person committing an act of elder abuse, but Jill Biden’s happy warrior-like smiles may hide something even more sinister. Could Jillary be the force behind the so-called Biden Crime Family?
Maybe. But she seems to me more like a successful hanger-on who isn’t ready for the gravy train to stop running.
October 30, 2023
WHAT A MESS: That ‘Snow White’ Reboot Is Getting a Reboot Before It Even Hits Theaters (A Year Late). “In case you were wondering which villain finally managed to kill a Disney princess, it was Disney.”
SPOILSPORTS: Scared of Halloween: Ghoulies, ghosties and DEI beasties.
Halloween has been canceled at schools in New Jersey’s South Orange-Maplewood School District. No costumes, no parades, no Halloween-themed art or poetry — not even a handful of candy corn — will brighten the day.
Canceling Halloween will encourage diversity, equity and inclusion, says school officials.
No, it won’t. But it will help teach children to grow up to be oversensitive snowflakes, which is the point.
TO BE FAIR, NONE OF THEM FIT THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE: The 10 Mass Shootings Since Lewiston You Didn’t Hear About.
#FIGHTFOR15: White Castle’s Robotic Chefs Usher in a New Era for Fast Food.
White Castle has teamed up with Miso Robotics to deploy “Flippy 2,” an advanced kitchen robot, across various locations. This move comes after a successful pilot with the original “Flippy” robot in Chicago, marking a significant step in automating fast food’s most repetitive tasks.
The adoption of “Flippy 2” is not just about novelty; it’s a strategic response to ongoing labor challenges and the need to enhance service efficiency. The robot doesn’t tire, doesn’t need a break, and is consistent, addressing several industry pain points. It has notably improved kitchen workflows, allowing human coworkers to engage more personally with customers, ensuring a dining experience that’s not only quick but also more human.
More human… for now?
RE-RECONQUISTA: Spain’s Muslim Migrant Crisis Through the Lens of History.
PAULA BOLYARD: We’re Locked and Loaded for 2024.
If you’re a regular PJ Media reader, you’ve no doubt already noticed that we’ve made some significant changes to the site today, starting with our color scheme. The teal is gone, replaced by our new patriotic colors, which are more in line with the other sites in the Townhall Media family.
But the changes are more than skin deep. Based on reader feedback, we’ve added a new “Columns” feature to the homepage that will be updated every time a new piece is posted in that section. You’ll now be able to see at a glance when your favorite writers have a new column up.
We’ve also made it easier to find members-only VIP content on the homepage, and you can now quickly see which articles are trending.
I really like the new site and — fingers crossed — today’s rollout has been a smooth one so far.
ALL THE SMARTEST PEOPLE KEEP TELLING ME THAT “RENEWABLES” ARE PROFITABLE: Wind companies losing billions, prompting fears a federal bailout could be coming.
Mounting financial losses in the wind industry over the last few months are taking a toll on the Biden administration’s clean energy drive. Despite the billions in subsidies that came down the pipeline in 2022 before the Inflation Reduction gave away even more money, energy experts don’t expect that the need for more money will deter the nationwide momentum to build more wind and solar farms.
Writing in his “Energy Absurdity” Substack, David Blackmon, an energy analyst with over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, said that the lobbying for more renewable energy dollars is likely near.
“Everyone should prepare themselves to see an effort in Washington, DC to allocate billions more dollars to bail out Big Offshore Wind developers soon,” Blackmon wrote.
Since the Obama administration, the federal government has been pouring billions into projects to meet environmental goals, only to have the companies go bankrupt.
If you want to know why Washington can’t seem to learn from failure, you’re asking the wrong question.
LOVELY: French Suburb Thrives After Ditching Ugly Commie Architecture. “That town is Le Plessis-Robinson. This municipality is home to around 30,000 inhabitants. When you walk it’s center, you might not notice what is so special about this place. It looks like a perfectly ordinary, charming French town, until you learn that everything you see is recently built.”
BOUGHT AND PAID FOR: Ivy League among top recipients of $8.5 billion Arab funding.
“In recent years, Qatar have been the largest investor in universities,” Dr. Bard’s report reads. “It, too, has an image problem as a funder and supporter of terrorist groups – Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood – and the home of the rabidly anti-Israel anti-American Al Jazeera television network.”
Dr. Brad also notes that since 1976, Arab governments and individuals have been providing American universities with hundreds of grants to create chairs and centers in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies.
Student groups at major gift recipients have come out against Israel in droves since the start of the latest Israel-Palestine conflict—beginning with the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
According to Dr. Brad’s report, Cornell is the single largest recipient of Arab funding with over $1.5 billion gifted between 127 gifts or contracts. Qatar also signed contracts with Cornell for six years prior to 2020 for the strange amount of $99,999,999.
Related: Cornell University on alert after violent threats to Jewish community.
Meanwhile: Far from Gaza hardships, Hamas chief and family enjoy easy life in Qatar.