The Morning Briefing: Leftist Fossil Fuels Don't Murder Polar Bears, Apparently

Top O’ the Briefing

(PROGRAMMING NOTE: I’ve got New Year’s Day off, which means that there will be no Monday MB — these get written the night before. I’ll be reposting another “classic” Briefing from the last 3 1/2 years.)

Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Redmon felt his peculiar genius for lagniappe suggestions surging every time he pampered himself with a spicy Clamato mocktail.

We’ll do a couple of quick things here at the top, a lengthy Mailbag, then it’s off to 2023 we go.

As our old friend Instapundit is fond of saying about the climate-change cultists: “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.”

The hypocrisy of the Doomsday Church of Climate Hysteria faithful is always staggering. It’s also always expensive. The last two Democrats in the White House have prioritized hastening the arrival of their green future, and the price tag keeps going up and up.

We’re constantly told that fossil fuels are the Great Satan that’s going to melt all the icecaps and send polar bears floating down the streets of Manhattan. When “climate deniers” are burning them, we’re killing Earth before our kids can enjoy it.

When leftists do it, it’s all “What? Me? Worry?”

Case in point: President LOLEightyonemillion’s New Year’s trip to St. Croix and the omnibus spending bill that’s trailing along behind to join him there, which Lincoln wrote about:

Multiple news outlets are reporting that after the House passed the $1.7 trillion omnibus pork sandwich last Friday, said bill is being flown, yes FLOWN, to St. Croix for Biden’s signature. Biden is reportedly ringing in the new year at the home of a wealthy donor there. He must sign the bill by Dec. 30. And since he is sunning his bum in the Virgin Islands, the White House is flying it down to him on the taxpayer’s nickel.

There was no way to coordinate it so that the bloated pig of a bill could have made the trip on Air Force One? If memory serves me, that’s a rather large airplane and there probably would have been room even for that ridiculously big pile of paper.

As Lincoln notes, the omnibus bill has billions dedicated to the insane green agenda. What better way to show dedication to the cause than getting as many fossil fuel-burning planes into the air as possible so our brain-dead president can grandstand on a beach while most of the country is freezing? This is like a trauma surgeon trying to stop a patient from bleeding out by cutting arteries willy-nilly, then telling the patient that it will magically get better if he just spends more money on the problem.

This, by the way, is even more reason to despise the McConnell/Romney wing of the GOP. They aid and abet the Democrats in flagrant highway robbery.

Republicans better hurry up and find as many non-Uniparty candidates as possible to run in 2024. If they don’t, we’ll be broke and speaking Mandarin long before that first polar bear hits Broadway.

One last item of business. The 2024 presidential election cycle will be kicking off in earnest before most of the 2023 snow has melted in America. We’re going to hit the ground running and not let up in our coverage of whatever kind of hot mess awaits the Republic. We like to have fun doing it, too.

Our VIP friends know that, and more of them are joining us now than ever before. They’re the backbone of this effort, and they give us the freedom to operate away from the creepy, prying eyes of the censors. Right now, you can join the fun on the other side with a massive 50% discount. Sign up here and use the promo code MERRYCHRISTMAS to enjoy premium multimedia content and reporting for just a few dollars a month.

Our VIP Gold friends join VodkaPundit and me every week for a rollicking three-hour (sometimes longer) live chat called Five O’Clock Somewhere. We’re joined weekly by guests from all over the Townhall Media Mothership, like Kira Davis, Kurt Schlichter, Ed Morrissey, Larry O’Connor, and Cam Edwards.

It’s “work,” but it’s also a party. We know how to be serious and lighthearted in proper measure. Happy New Year, everyone and I hope to soon see more of you on the wild side!

Please consider subscribing to the Morning Briefing here. It’s free and it helps keep me off the streets.

The Mailbag of Magnificence contributions can be sent to [email protected].

The Mailbag of Magnificence

Stay tuned for a big announcement at the end of the Mailbag. We will begin with this note from René:

Dear Mr. K.

I’ve not heard the lyrics of a Lerner and Loewe song in Czech, but I can translate a tongue twister for you.

Strch prst skrz krk (say that fast 5 times)

A full sentence without a single vowel, which roughly translated means, stick your finger through your neck.

Not something one is prone to do, but hey, Czechs are wild and crazy guys and gals.

Your faithful Czech guy reader (and legally in the U.S.)

I’m half-Polish, so vowels kind of freak me out anyway. “Stick your finger through your neck” will definitely be worked into my rotation of casual insults. It’s perfectly delightful in English. In fact, it may be the only response I have for the trolls for a while. Thanks for sharing that!

Alex shares this:

The RINOS are just like the Scottish nobles in the movie Braveheart. They share allegiance with Longshanks (democrats), and are quite content to squabble for the scraps from Longshank’s table. Trump is William Wallace – loud, outspoken, crude- making enemies on both sides. To parody the opening dialogue imagine Angus Mac Fayden’s voice over James Horner music “I shall tell you of Donald the Orange. Historians from the deep state will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have suppressed the truth. The election had been stolen by an evil and corrupt party. It’s leader, a babbling moron known as Robinette the Slow claimed the presidency as his own. He drooled on himself and on others”.

I tend to agree with you, but now I’m picturing Trump in a kilt, and this is why I drink.

“Robinette the Slow” is a gem, by the way.

Let us now move on to the topic that keeps on giving. Dan writes:

Re Perri’s comment:
“Online content is often full of sentence fragments, broken statements, misused homonyms, and idioms that are simply wrong because rather than understanding them writers “hear them” and repeat them.”

“Sentence fragments?”

Half the fun!

“Misused homonyms?”

Why due discussions so often devolve do to sexuality?

Dan, you’re having fun on the internet — THE SCOLDS WILL NOT LET THIS STAND. They’re going to show up at your house with a warrant and confiscate all of your humor.

Very well played.

Karl chimes in with this:

“More taste” or “less filling”? Hey, you and Perri are both right!

In some cases, Perri’s point is well taken: One can be precise without being turgid. But in the present case, you’re right: “Everything isn’t awful” is the right way to put it.

I take as my text the common saying, “All that glitters is not gold.” Taken literally, it would mean “nothing that glitters is gold,” which is obviously untrue. But the more precise alternative, “Not all that glitters is gold,” would be (as you put it) “clunky.”

As the following Wikipedia entry shows, you’ve got Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Led Zeppelin on your side.

All that glitters is not gold – Wikipedia

Keep up the good work!

You have NO idea how often I was compared to Chaucer when I was a boy.

John McWhorter is my favorite linguist (we should all have one) and he wrote a book titled Words on the Move: Why English Won’t – and Can’t – Sit Still (Like, Literally). It’s a marvelous examination of the fact that English is a dynamic hot mess that’s changing all the time. Rules and meanings regularly get thrown out and replaced. I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the backup!

We will finish with Mitch’s complaint:

…and have a complaint. “Everything Isn’t Awful” isn’t merely “imprecise”, it’s WRONG. Not admitting one’s errors is a thing on the Left, not over here on the Right. Our team is very seldom wrong, but on those rare occasions, we own up to it, make corrections and/or apologies, and move on (but not like moveon.org).

May I respectfully suggest the equally snappy, as well as grammatically correct:
“Not Everything’s Awful!” The contraction & exclamation point give it a bit of zip, the italics are optional.

As Karl explained above, it’s not wrong.

My announcement was going to be that the easiest way to stop having this conversation is to just get rid of the section. The emails from Dan and Karl have me rethinking that. I was going to post one last video, then retire Everything Isn’t Awful in 2023. Seriously, if I want to be nagged this much, I’ll get married again.

Instead of declaring it gone forever, we will wrap up 2022 with a one-time, very precise rebranding of the title.

It’s been fun doing the Mailbag these past few months I can’t wait for the first one of the new year. Thanks to all who have participated!

Pedantry Is Always Awful

Farewell, sweet kitties. Maybe.

Catwalk.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/PhDAre486t

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) December 27, 2022

Bee Me

Airlines Insist Flights Aren't Being Canceled, They're Being Held Accountablehttps://t.co/LZPLTqU1Fq

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 29, 2022

The Kruiser Kabana

Kabana Gallery

Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Eighteen Metres Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1976 #dali #surrealism https://t.co/vCNp4uTRZF pic.twitter.com/mNvLmfARul

— Salvador Dali (@artist_dali) December 29, 2022