Author Archive: Stephen Green
June 21, 2022
I HAD BEEN ASSURED THIS KIND OF THING NEVER HAPPENED: Woman Pleads Guilty to 26 Felony Counts of Voter Fraud in South Texas.
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Biden’s Cigarette Crackdown a Boon for Drug Dealers, Experts Warn.
The Food and Drug Administration is preparing this month to require lower nicotine content in all cigarettes—a move critics argue will wreck the $75 billion U.S. tobacco industry amid a global economic crisis and boost a black market as crime spikes nationwide. The news comes weeks after the agency announced its plans to ban menthol cigarettes, which will cost federal and local governments an estimated $6.6 billion in the first year alone.
Richard Marianos, a 27-year veteran of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, said these regulations will shift the demand for cigarettes toward unregulated tobacco grown internationally, which is then purchased and sold by drug dealers.
“The problem again with this administration is they do not take into consideration a totality of subject matter experts,” Marianos told the Washington Free Beacon. “I’ve never seen this much foolishness in my life.”
Marianos, who worked on gang violence at the ATF, said the black market for cigarettes is dominated by street gangs and would grow at least a hundredfold after the FDA implements its nicotine decision. He claims one of his former informants discovered some dealers make $5,000 selling cigarettes in a single afternoon. The FDA’s “uneducated and silly” cigarette plan, he said, would require law enforcement to focus on tobacco sales rather than drugs and violent crime.
That appears to be a feature, not a bug.
HISTORY REPEATS: Why Russia Keeps Turning to Mass Firepower.
WELL, KRUGMAN: Paul Krugman Predicted a ‘Biden Boom’ That Never Came.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Welcome to Insanity Wrap, an entire week’s worth of lefty nuttiness wrapped up in one easy-to-swallow capsule of news. Getting Juneteenth wrong is this week’s big crazy.
Plus:
- “Kids and kink can coexist”
- Terrence K. Williams will not be canceled, and neither will his delicious pancakes
- Fake women claim real women will die out
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: We asked teachers how their year went. They warned of an exodus to come.
“I feel like at the beginning of the school year, I basically got second graders, because that’s the point where they were in school full time,” she said.
“Though you’re a fourth grade teacher, you’re teaching kids who are emotionally at the second grade level. And academically, we’re back to working miracles, like, ‘Hey, we need to get these kids caught up, we need to fill these gaps.'”
Beyond academic development, teachers are also reporting serious concerns around mental health.
Polk-Hoffses said that although her pre-K students were coming to her “fresh” at a young age, she had witnessed the concern among her colleagues.
“They’re very worried about the students that they had this year, because they saw a lot of depression. Someone even brought up cutting, they were afraid that a student would begin cutting again,” Polk-Hoffses said.
“Students were learning in isolation, then they came back, and they’re overwhelmed, and they’ve experienced a trauma. And unfortunately, all schools aren’t equipped to deal with the trauma that the students have experienced during the pandemic.”
The trauma was unnecessary, as were the lockdowns — both encouraged by the teachers’ unions.
THAT’S NOT FUNNY, THEY EXPLAINED: AP ‘Fact Checks’ Biden Bike Meme as New Info About Fall Comes to Light.
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER: You Are Not Alone. “If we all speak out against it, we can bring back sanity, and protect our children. To that point, 90% of Americans oppose minors having gender transition procedures, and 72% oppose radical leftist gender theory being taught in school.”
Another important reminder, although I doubt few Instapundit readers require it: Twitter isn’t the real world.
SAY ANYTHING: Biden Pushes Back At Reporter Over Recession Warnings: ‘Don’t Make Things Up!’
Also Joe Biden:
Joe Biden lied repeatedly about marching in the civil rights movement during first presidential run.
Watch Joe Biden Lie His Ass Off About The Flynn Investigation.
New Photos Show Joe Biden Lied About Knowledge of Hunter’s Foreign Dealings.
Joe Biden Lies About His College & High School Record.
Biden falsely claims Naval Academy appointment.
Joe Biden Repeats the Charlottesville Lie.
And maybe the worst of all: Biden Lied for Years About the Driver Involved in His Wife and Daughter’s Death.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Someone in the Uvalde PD Needs to Walk the Proverbial Plank. “If something goes wrong on the operating table, no one wants a surgeon who needs to take some time to think. The same applies to anyone who professionally deals with life-or-death scenarios.”
DON’T OVERLOOK THE INFLATIONARY EFFECTS OF EASY CREDIT AND DEBT FORGIVENESS: Student-Loan Forgiveness Will Cover Non-Education Purchases, Say, Newer Cars. “Critics of student-loan forgiveness have overlooked how student-loan forgiveness can effectively morph into forgiveness of other non-education purchases, say, cars, trips, and home remodels (and a multitude of other goods). This is made possible by student loans that come with government subsidies and guarantees and, consequently, more attractive interest rates and repayment terms than personal loans (and, now, with the added prospects of payment pauses and loan forgiveness).”
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Matt Margolis: The ‘Putin’s Price Hike’ Spin Falls Flatter Than Biden on a Bike. “The real shocker in the poll is that even most Democrats blame Biden for inflation.”
Kevin Downey Jr: This Is NOT the America Our Soldiers Fought and Died For. “Do not adjust your dial. The communist invasion has begun!”
Yours Truly: It’s Official: WaPo Wokester Taylor Lorenz Is the Most Insufferable Person Alive. “And yet… she found a way over the next 48 hours to become still more insufferable.”
COLORADO: Declining water levels caused by government, not climate.
The Colorado River Research Group, a team of scholars at Utah State University, studies this River system, from perspectives in social, physical, and biological sciences, along with water law and public policy. In 2018, they highlighted the role of policy decisions in draining Lake Powell, in a paper aptly titled, “It’s Hard to Fill a Bathtub When the Drain is Wide Open.” That is precisely what has happened at Lake Powell, yet the report has been largely ignored. It should be required reading for everyone concerned about the Colorado River.
Lake Powell was created for the primary purpose of administering the Interstate Compact – ensuring the Upper Basin states can deliver the water they are required to send downstream, even in dry years. It was completed in 1966 and finally filled to its 27 million acre-foot capacity by 1980. But since 2000, the water level has dropped 94 feet, even though the Upper Basin states have consistently used only 60 percent of their entitlements. The lake holds barely 10 million acre-feet today.
In reservoirs designed for multi‐year carryover storage, “declines are expected in dry years, and recovery is expected in wet years.” But at Lake Powell, “When large inflows do occur, current operational rules immediately trigger large releases.” In the extremely wet year of 2011, for example, inflow at Lake Powell was five million acre-feet above average. But the Bureau immediately opened the gates and sent it all downstream to Lake Mead, benefitting California, Las Vegas, and fish. No wonder Lake Powell cannot recover during wet years.
The report acknowledges that several dry years contributed to the water level drop, “but ultimately it is the operational rules that are slowly but surely draining Lake Powell.”
Plus: “To be clear, it was the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation – not global warming – that changed the rules for managing river flows.”
Yes, but it’s easier to sell the public on global warming economic controls when you can point to shrinking water reservoirs.
PAULA BOLYARD: What Were Police Thinking? News About the Uvalde School Shooting Just Keeps Getting Worse and Worse.
Let me preface this by saying two things: First, we still don’t have all the details about the shooting in which an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 other people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Second, police have incredibly difficult jobs, requiring them to make split-second decisions while under enormous pressure under extremely dangerous and stressful situations.
That said, the latest news from the investigation into the shooting looks very bad for the law-enforcement officials responding to the scene. Tony Plohetski, an investigative reporter for the Austin-American Statesman, tweeted a picture showing police stationed outside the classroom where more than a dozen children were murdered. The officers, armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield, were in the hallway near the classroom at 11:52 a.m.—58 minutes before they breached the locked classroom, and 19 minutes after the gunman entered the school. At 12:03 p.m. a second officer with a ballistic shield arrived, followed by a third a few minutes later.
“Investigators believe this is significant because it indicates they had more than enough firepower and protection to enter the classroom before they did,” wrote Plohetski. “Officers were growing impatient far sooner: ‘If there’s kids in there we need to go in there,’ one said on body camera video.”
Read the whole thing.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Typical U.S. Asking Rent Surpassed $2,000 for First Time in May. “The median monthly asking rent in the U.S. surpassed $2,000 for the first time in May, rising 15% year over year to a record high of $2,002. That’s on par with April’s annual increase of 15%, but a slowdown from March’s 17% gain.”
MATT MARGOLIS: Here’s What You Haven’t Been Told About Juneteenth. “While Americans agree that slavery was a horrible institution, thousands of Americans died to end it, and its demise should be celebrated federally. But is Juneteenth really the best day for that?”
BATTLESWARM BLOG: Japanese Boobs 1, Feminists 0. “I know you linked the original story, but I’ve added what I think the piece cried out for: Visual aids.”
Indeed.
WOKE MADNESS: Man Not Allowed Donate Blood Because He Won’t Say If He’s Pregnant. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t offend womyn with lady-penises.”
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Two prominent Democratic lawmakers violated a federal conflicts-of-interest law. Again.
Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland are in violation of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act’s disclosure provisions, according to an Insider review of financial filings the lawmakers made with Congress.
Hickenlooper, who ran for president in 2020, failed to disclose purchases of varying classes of stock from by his wife. They include shares of Liberty Media Corporation, Qurate Retail, and Liberty Broadband Corporation in 2021 and early 2022. The stocks were valued between $516,006 and $1.2 million.
Hickenlooper was also late in reporting that his wife sold between $130,004 and $300,000 worth of stock in Liberty Media Corporation and Liberty Broadband Corporation from March 2022.
Lawmakers are only required to report the value of such financial trades in broad ranges.
It’s nice to write the laws that concern you. It’s even nicer to be able to ignore them.