TODAY IN UNSURPRISING NEWS: Boos and catcalls greet Mitt Romney as he attempts to speak to Utah GOP convention. “His NeverTrump status and especially his vote to convict on one count of President Trump’s second impeachment seem to have alienated a lot of Utah Republicans, in a state renowned for genteel politeness. Watch and listen to the heckling.”
BYRON YORK: If Biden is a centrist, why do leftists love him now? It was a bait-and-switch.
Related: Joe Biden, Crisis Monger.
THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: SpaceX Crew Dragon makes 1st nighttime splashdown with US astronauts since Apollo era.
STILL DOING WELL ON THE CHARTS: Stephen Halbrook’s The Right to Bear Arms: A Constitutional Right of the People or a Privilege of the Ruling Class? Very good timing, with the Supreme Court having just taken a case on Second Amendment carry rights.
UPDATE: Now #1 in Constitutional Law! Better Stephen than Larry Tribe.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a review from Dave Kopel.
THE REDNECK INTELLECTUAL: On The Hierarchy of Sports.
FROM ROBERT JULIANO: Cry Bullies Protecting yourself against social muggers and victimhood aggression.
(I read this years ago. It was AMAZINGLY useful. Had reason to remember it recently. It is a manual for dealing with the woke.) (Bumped)
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51uX1zTH-wL.jpg
FLORIDA: The Emerging Super State.
May 1, 2021
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Powerful teachers union influenced CDC on school reopenings, emails show.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Watch SpaceX Fly 4 Astronauts for Late Night Splash Down. “NASA has not conducted a nighttime splash down like this since 1968, when Apollo 8, the first mission to send astronauts around the moon, returned to Earth.”
DEMOCRATS DON’T NEED TO BE CONSISTENT, THEY JUST NEED A NARRATIVE:
NOT THE SAME, BUT I’VE NEVER SHOT WITH A COP I DIDN’T OUTSHOOT: Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell was challenged to a shoot-off by a civilian- and lost. Of course, shooting on a range isn’t the same as combat shooting.
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? How did you spend your week? NASA pretended to crash an asteroid into Earth. “Every two years, as part of the International Academy of Astronautics’ Planetary Defense Conference, scientists and emergency response personnel gather to discuss a made-up asteroid threat from discovery to impact. During this year’s exercise, which unfolded online from April 26 to April 28, the scenario presented an impact just six months away, a pointed reminder that limited lead time is a key weakness in our asteroid defense systems.”
THE ENEMY WITHIN: From a Law Professor, About Anti-Racism Meetings. “Sadly, academics across the country engaging in such activities often don’t recognize the meaningful similarity between socially coerced statements of Anti-Racist activities and the anti-communist oaths of the McCarthy era—evincing the failure, regularly repeated, to appreciate tragic histories so often justified by good intentions.”
Well, sometimes the intentions are good.
I THINK WE’VE KNOWN THIS FOR ABOUT A YEAR: Study: Blood oxygenation helps patients with severe COVID-19.
REMINDER: It’s Victims of Communism Day.
INTERESTING: Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection rescues B and T cell responses to variants after first vaccine. “They found that people who had previously had mild or asymptomatic infection had significantly enhanced protection against the Kent and South Africa variants, after a single dose of the mRNA vaccine. In those without prior COVID-19, the immune response was less strong after a first dose, potentially leaving them at risk from variants.”
JUST BACK FROM THE 2021 DALLAS INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL: Downsides: Surprisingly little mask wearing (I’m glad I’ve had my vaccination), and with the exception of online music retailer Sweetwater, not many of the big players in the music industry had a direct presence there, beyond what their dealers had on display. Upsides: A glimpse of a return to normal, with live music events (both an indoor and outdoor stage), and enough people attending that the dealers said it was the best turnout in three years. And I did I say it was glimpse of a return to normal? Watch for a more detailed report, and many more photos soon. There’s one more day of the festival, if you’re in the D-FW Metroplex area on Sunday.
This little guy could absolutely shred on Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” on a Fender Strat that’s bigger than he is.
Les Paul Forum alumnus Tom Wittrock of Third Eye Music, holding one of his ultra rare late 1950s sunburst Gibson Les Pauls, which routinely trade in the six-figure range these days.
THE UNION FOCUSES ON VIRTUE-SIGNALING BECAUSE IT’S BAD AT ITS ACTUAL JOB: “It says a lot about the players union that it organized a deal that can’t keep its former members from going broke after retirement.”
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Texas Democratic Official Called on to Resign for Calling Senator Tim Scott an ‘Oreo:’
Liberals believe that because of their “solidarity” with black people, they can criticize white people as if their own skin is of a little darker hue. Take Lamar County Democratic Party Chairman Gary O’Connor. The Texas Democratic leader did his best Jesse Jackson impersonation in describing Scott’s statement.
“I had hoped that Scott might show some common sense, but it seems clear he is little more than an oreo with no real principles,” Lamar County Democratic Party chair Gary O’Connor wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post, referring to Scott’s rebuttal to President Biden’s congressional address on Wednesday.
A screenshot of O’Connor’s Facebook post can be found here.
WHERE ARE ALL THE GUNS?
LAMAR COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR GARY O’CONNOR: Texas Democratic Official Called on to Resign for Calling Senator Tim Scott an ‘Oreo.’
TOOL TIME: Scientists Find Oldest Evidence of Ancient Human Activity Deep Inside a Desert Cave.. “We can now say with confidence that our human ancestors were making simple Oldowan stone tools inside the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago.”
NOTHING SHOUTS “WE’RE FOLLOWING THE SCIENCE” HERE LIKE THE PHRASE “PREGNANT PEOPLE:” COVID-19 Vaccines Using mRNA Appear Safe and Effective in Pregnant People.
HMM: CDC: J&J vaccine may cause anxiety-related reactions, such as fainting. The Insta-Daughter had that one — she was part of the vaccine trial — and barely felt anything.
ROGER SIMON: I Dreamt of Richard Pryor Last Night.
I wonder what Richard would have made of critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, and all that.
As far as I could tell there wasn’t a racist bone in his body. Like the best comedians—and he was the best—he was an equal opportunity destroyer. I recall practically falling on the floor in laughter when he imitated a black person and white person walking through the woods.
The obvious subtext of what to me was his best movie—“Stir Crazy” with the also brilliant Gene Wilder—was that a black guy and a white guy could love each other. Who makes a movie like that these days?
Who lives a life like that these days? Well, a few of us still, but the world is conspiring against us.
Another factor that may have been running around in my head when I had this dream was the treatment of Senator Tim Scott after he had the honesty to declare, during his speech after Biden’s tedious litany of social engineering, that “systemic racism” did not exist in our country.
The “Uncle Tim” hashtag onslaught that immediately appeared on Twitter was but another display of pathological hate on a noxious social media outlet that has long since outlived its usefulness.
How would Richard have reacted to all this? Of course, I can’t say. I want to believe he would’ve thought it all an apt subject for satire, but the sad truth is that many of the most creative and insightful black people (cf. Morgan Freeman) have been forced to walk back sensible statements by the victimology-addicted people in their community and their white elitist allies.
I never thought I’d say it but…. oh, for 1980.
Much less opportunity for corporate grift in a world where we judge men by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Speaking of which, guess which famous quote by Martin Luther King isn’t present on the walls of his iconic DC memorial.
TAXPAYER-FUNDED RACISM: Here’s a deep dive into one university’s anti-white diversity training.
I REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE TOLD THAT HIGHER EDUCATION FOSTERS TOLERANCE AND CRITICAL THINKING: Professors nationwide promise to cancel class…to get ‘Cops off campus.’
ACTUALLY, IT’S A TRUST PROBLEM: PEOPLE DON’T TRUST THE EXPERTS OR AUTHORITIES ANYMORE. Vaccine Skepticism Was Viewed as a Knowledge Problem. It’s Actually About Gut Beliefs.
Or maybe one of the relevant “gut beliefs” is that the people running things are incompetents who often lie and manipulate. I mean, here’s how the NYT disposes of concerns about the vaccines: “Manufacturers of the three vaccines approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration say they are safe.” I mean, you don’t have to be a paranoid science-denier to find that less than fully reassuring.
Related: The Suicide of Expertise.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Biden Nominee Denied Working With An Anti-Semitic Poet, But An Academic Journal Shows Otherwise.
WHEN BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER: One Year After George Floyd, Minneapolis Is “Murderapolis” Again.
Related: When Black Lives Matter to Democrats — And When They Don’t.
BUT TRUMP’S MEAN TWEETS: Catholics rip Biden: ‘100 days of disappointment.’
AT HELEN’S PAGE: The Hard Man Novels, Read free on kindle unlimited. (Bumped)
YES. NEXT QUESTION? None Dare Call It Socialism?
Stephen Collinson is well-known among conservatives as the most hackneyed of the hacks at CNN. The CNN Politics Twitter account promoted his latest online essay with the words “President Biden to showcase his moderate radicalism in his big congressional address.”
“Moderate radicalism”? Doesn’t that make about as much sense as “quiet loudness”?
Collinson argued “Biden’s quiet radicalism is expressed through a huge pandemic rescue bill, a larger proposal that redefines the concept of infrastructure, and a massive health and child care blueprint.” In other words, a socialist blueprint.
Politico gushed with this headline “Biden Just Gave the Most Ideologically Ambitious Speech of Any Democratic President in Generations.” Our socialist media won’t use the S-word. They use words like “bold” and “ambitious” and repeat phrases like “go big or go home.” As if you couldn’t say a Soviet five-year plan was “go big or go home.”
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and their gaslighting makes perfect sense.
OUT ON A LIMB: Biden Is Using the Pandemic as an Excuse for Permanent Expansions of Government PowerBiden Is Using the Pandemic as an Excuse for Permanent Expansions of Government Power.
GOODER AND HARDER: N.Y., New Jersey, California Hit Hardest by Biden Tax Changes.
JIMMY KIMMEL WHITESPLAINS RACISM TO TIM SCOTT:
Remember when it was racist for a white person to disagree with a black politician? I’m not sure when that whole phenomenon started, but it had its heyday around… oh, let me look… January 20, 2009, to January 20, 2017. At any point between those two dates, you couldn’t say anything that contradicted and/or criticized a black politician without being informed that you only hated him for the color of his skin. That was the only reason anybody would ever bother to dissent, we were told. Wanted lower taxes? Racist. Didn’t want socialized medicine? Racist. Noticed that William Ayers was a terrorist and Rev. Jeremiah Wright was an anti-Semite? Racist, racist, racist. That was the rule, and it was rigidly enforced by our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the press, as well as many of their fellow Democrats.
These days, things are a bit more lax. Not only can a white dude disagree with a black politician, but he can even laugh at a black politician for claiming to know what it’s like to be black in America!
That’s what former comedian Jimmy Kimmel did last night on his talk show, which I don’t watch and neither do you:
Scott is being lectured to on the topic of racism by at least two of the most prominent show business practitioners of blackface, Kimmel, and Joy Behar:
Related, from America’s Newspaper of Record: Dems: ‘If America Isn’t Racist, How Do You Explain These White Hoods We’re Wearing?’
I DON’T PLAY D & D, BUT THAT’S AMAZING: Erol Otus – Dungeons and Dragons Artist.
CU BOULDER… ONE DOESN’T KNOW WHETHER TO ADMIRE HIS COURAGE OR HIS DEATH WISH: Professor Lays Groundwork to Sue CU-Boulder for Stripping Him of Duties After Speaking at Trump Rally.
I mean, he spoke at a Trump rally, despite working in Boulder. Sir, if you read this, I’d like to meet somewhere just to shake your hand. “Brave and crazy” like that is a rare find.
RACCCCCISSSSS, ELEVENTY: Biden Bans Travel From India Due to COVID Surge Despite Slamming Trump’s Actions in 2020.
GOOD, IF HE STICKS WITH IT: Joe Manchin Just Says “NO” To D.C. Statehood Legislation.
HE CAN’T FIND HIS MIND, EITHER: Biden frantic after forgetting he put mask in his pocket.
YOU KNOW, THIS WOULD BE A GREAT TOURIST ATTRACTION: Stomach-churning pedestrian bridge opens in Portugal.
That is, if they hadn’t gone coco for coco puffs over the covidiocy in a way that makes our own local insanity seem sane.
WELL, SEE, THE PROBLEM IS I DON’T LIVE NEXT TO THE GOVERNOR’S MANSION… Man erects poop wall after property dispute with neighbor.
YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW HOW TO LISTEN: Woman credits cat with detecting breast cancer: ‘If only pets could talk’.
PEOPLE FORGET THAT WHISTLEBLOWERS ARE ONLY CREDIBLE DURING GOP ADMINISTRATIONS: Pentagon whistleblower warns of UFO intelligence failure on ‘level of 9/11’.
YOU KNOW, NORMALLY I’D SAY THIS IS CRAZY, BUT THE TIMES WE’RE LIVING IN… UFOs are real, feds’ cover-up fueled by fear: ex-Pentagon whistleblower.
These are not quite the times that try men’s souls. They’re more the days that make all of us start to believe lizard people conspiracies, simply because they make more sense than the reality we’re stuck in.
April 30, 2021
FIGHT THE POWER: A Trump supporter infiltrated an Antifa group in Sonoma. “It felt like seeing Antifa getting sort of a pass all the time from government saying they don’t exist, saying that they’re a myth, saying that they’re just an idea. You know, when obviously, they are very real, and they’re a big threat.”
LIFE IN 2021: A rich Democratic woman whitesplaining racism to a Black Republican.
THAT’S NOT THE NARRATIVE: Cancer rates in medieval Britain around ten times higher than previously thought, study suggests. “The first study to use X-rays and CT scans to detect evidence of cancer among the skeletal remains of a pre-industrial population suggests that between 9-14% of adults in medieval Britain had the disease at the time of their death. This puts cancer prevalence in a time before exposure to tumour-inducing chemicals from industry and tobacco at around ten times higher than previously thought, according to researchers.”
BUT IS IT TOO LATE? Is Coke Rethinking Woke? Why the soft-drink giant is pulling back from its left-wing posturing.
Conservatives who are tempted to despair over the abrupt shift of major corporations into engines of left-wing culture war might want to take a look at Coca-Cola. Recent developments suggest that Coke is rethinking woke. . . . On April 10, dozens of corporate chieftains met to consider sanctions against Georgia. Instead, they ended up issuing a vaguely worded statement about voting rights that did not even mention the state. And Coca-Cola, along with fellow Georgian behemoth Delta Air Lines, was conspicuously absent from the list of signatories. Instead, on April 14, the company issued a decidedly conciliatory statement. . . .
Neither Douglas, nor Gayton, nor Coca-Cola is talking to the media about any of this right now, but read the tea leaves: Within a span of three weeks, the company came under public fire from prominent Republicans, swiftly de-escalated its rhetoric on the Georgia law, saw its general counsel hastily resign, and saw his replacement declare a “pause” on his most heavily criticized efforts. It certainly looks as if Coca-Cola has reached a corporate decision to pull back from a partisan and ideological posture that actively antagonized half the country, including the state government of where Coca-Cola is headquartered.
Most big companies do not insert themselves into so many hot-button political debates in such a short span, and not every large company has equally large direct competitors, as Coca-Cola does. But there should be a lesson here for conservatives. Companies may drift into wokeness in order to avoid conflict with the squeaky wheels on Twitter and in the world of left-activism, but they are fundamentally risk-averse. The people pushing Coca-Cola to the left are extremely loud, but there are not really that many of them.
Stand up to the bullies.
Flashback: How to beat the woke: Never apologize, rally friends and punch back harder. “University and corporate bosses give into the woke because it’s painless and easier than fighting them. Make it painful and difficult instead, and they’ll change their ways. Take this to heart. The sane can win.”
WELL, THE GOVERNMENT HASN’T BEEN ENCOURAGING ON THIS FRONT: Poll: Nearly half of vaccine-hesitant Americans worried about side effects.
Plus, the constant yammering that people who have been vaccinated still need to mask and distance has removed incentives, making the calculus kind of one-sided.
Related: The CDC is still repeating its mistakes. “Finally, the CDC guidelines are not just timid and inconsistent. They are late: We’ve known about outdoor transmission being a much lower risk for almost a year now. We should move cautiously, for sure, but excessive caution creates fatigue and mistrust.”
MY BODY, MY CHOICE, RIGHT? Not Everyone Wants To Be Vaccinated. I’m OK With That. “If everyone who wishes to be vaccinated is able to do so without logistical or bureaucratic obstacles, then I would regard that as an enormous success. And we are close to reaching that point in the US. Unless the government forcibly compels unwilling people to receive the vaccine, that’s as much as one can reasonably expect.”
Well, the number would be higher if the public health authorities were competent. Telling people they still have to mask and distance even after being vaccinated was a disaster; the unnecessary pause on J&J vaccinations was a debacle.
PJ MEDIA VIP WRAP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Stacey Lennox: News on COVID-19 Testing Should Prompt an IMMEDIATE Congressional Investigation. “ In other words, a positive COVID-19 PCR test is not a definitive diagnosis in the absence of a full assessment of the patient and the situation. Yet, in December of 2020, the revision to the CDC guidelines for laboratories still used a Ct of 40 as the threshold to be considered negative.” (That’s a lot of not-sick sick people.)
Tyler O’Neil: Professor Makes a Stunning Admission About How She Trains Future K-12 Teachers. “I mean, it’s all social justice. All day, every day, I get to talk about the things I love. I’m really living the life over here.” (“Social” in front of any word reverses the word’s meaning.)
Yours Truly: What Do You Do with Democrats Who Enjoy Being Accused of Racism? “Imagine for a moment that you’re a well-meaning Democrat. How much of ‘All White People Are Racist’ clips could you get through before jumping on board the Trump Train?” (All of them, apparently.)
LAUGHTER IN THE GULAG: Woke people are stupid, and stupid people are funny. Stupid people are still dangerous. Laugh, but be ready to protect yourself.
INSERT HENRY KISSINGER’S JOKE ABOUT THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR HERE: The War Between New York Leftists. Cuomo Vs DeBlasio is New York’s version of Godzilla vs. King Kong.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: College professors caught on hot mic gloating about teaching Marxism, social justice to students.
Two professors at Roosevelt University in Illinois, who also serve on the school board for a local high school, were caught on a hot mic recently gloating about how they promote Marxist ideology to their college students.
The leftist educators, Gina Harris and Ralph Martire, were joining a February school board meeting for Oak Park and River Forest High School via Zoom when they began candidly discussing their “social justice” and Marxist advocacy, West Cook News reported.
“I mean, it’s all social justice, all day, every day. I get to talk about the things I love all the time. All day [at my day classes], all night of my night classes,” Harris said gleefully about her time teaching at the university. “I’m really living the life over here.”
Harris, who reportedly teaches “middle school theory and practice” to future educators at Roosevelt, called social justice “a part of everything” and a “foundation.”
To be fair, that’s all pretty on-brand for a university named after Roosevelt: “‘Why should Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?’ asked Stuart Chase in his book, A New Deal, published in 1932.”
COVID ONE YEAR AGO TODAY: How Long Will a Vaccine Really Take?, asked the New York Times: “So researchers might produce a viable vaccine in just 12 to 18 months, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. Millions of people could be in line before you. And that’s only if the United States finds a vaccine first. If another country, like China, beats us to it, we could wait even longer while it doses its citizens first.”
EVERYBODY DERPS.
QUESTION ASKED: Why Commemorate Black April?
For Van Truong Le in Boston, this is a painful day, a time he and others who fled Vietnam call “Black April.”
“Because that was when folks from South Vietnam lost our country to the North Communist regime,” he said. “It was the day we lost our country. So we refer to it as Black April 1975. In fact for the last 40 years on April 30, the Vietnamese who have resettled here for the most part commemorate and observe that day as a day to commemorate the loss of Vietnam.”
And that name fits with good reason. Forced reeducation camps and a communization of the economy were in store for those who remained in Vietnam, as part of North Vietnam’s Communist takeover. Here is an excerpt of an account by Quyen Trong, who relates his father’s oral history:
After the Fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975, every South Vietnamese man, from former officers in the armed forces, to religious leaders, to employees of the Americans or the old government, were told to report to a re-education camp to “learn about the ways of the new government.” Many South Vietnamese men chose to flee on boats, but others had established lives and loved ones in Vietnam, so they willingly entered these camps in hopes of quickly reconciling with the new government and continuing their lives peacefully. According to my father, the government said re-education would only last for ten days, and at most two weeks. However, once there, the men were detained for many years in grueling labor camps.
The time of imprisonment was physically demanding and morally disheartening. “The Communists put people like me into the jungle so that we would get sick and slowly die off. That was their goal… Everyone was miserable. Many people died of sadness… One week I’d see one gravesite. As the weeks went on I saw more and more graves.”
Prisoners endured long days of menial labor and physical pain. “Everyday I needed to get 20kg of bamboo shoots. We had to peel the outside until we reached the soft white middle to collect. I worked in the jungle where there were leeches skinny as chopsticks. But once they stuck onto you and sucked on your blood, they would swell like fat sausages. I would lie there at night, tired and not knowing why, and my friends would see a big leech on my foot and pry it off.”
Related: PragerU with the truth about the Vietnam War:
AT HELEN’S PAGE: With Mother’s Day coming up soon, go visit Hunt Country Jewelers. From a reviewer at Helen’s Page: “Great service and fast shipping to Texas. I found the perfect gift on their site and they were a pleasure to deal with. Carolyn Cutshall kept me well informed on my purchase and I received it the next day. Will definitely buy from them again.”
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: White House to restrict travel from India.
—Axios, today.
● Chaser:
WELL, YES: Biden’s Proposed Education Spending Spree Is Untenable, Unaffordable
We’ve arrived at the “gain power by whatever means and then raid the Treasury” stage of banana republicanism.
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: Franklin Graham Wanted to Honor Seattle Police. They Spat in His Face.
FIGHT THE POWER. STICK IT TO THE MAN. New legal fund protects professors against cancelation threats by their universities: “You do it because it has to be done,” says professor who got huge settlement from university. “Principles have to be upheld.”
Even better if you can get a “huge settlement” while doing it. Though the settlements need to get huger.
Related (From Ed): Linfield University president: I did not know there were rules for firing tenured faculty.
PARANOIA, BIG DESTROYER: Jeopardy Contestant Under Mob Assault for Making a ‘White Power’ Hand Gesture That Wasn’t.
MORE VOTES THAN ANY PRESIDENT IN HISTORY: A Plurality of Voters Deem Biden’s First 100 Days a ‘Failure.’
FLASHBACK: The Case for Love Socialism. Why not, uh, spread the wealth?
BIDEN: It’s a “patriotic responsibility” for vaccinated people to keep wearing masks.
More or less so than raising taxes? Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Arizona School Board Flees from Concerned Parents, Parents Elect New Board.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What do you call it when a cowardly local school board flees from parents demanding relaxed mask rules, only to have the parents use Roger’s Rules of Order to elect a new board right there on the spot?
Answer: ‘Merica, baby.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Cowardly congresscritter calls for higher taxes on herself, won’t write a check to the Treasury
- American scientists who assured us the Wuhan virus could not have escaped from that Wuhan lab worked with that Wuhan lab and praised the CCP
- Bob and Bing on the road to Zimbabwe — along with the rest of us
Bonus Sanity: For only the third time ever, it’s right there in the lead story.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Does ‘anti-racism’ also mean slurring black conservatives? It sure seems that way on Twitter.
That’s awfully rich coming from Behar: Joy Behar roasted for denying wearing blackface: ‘Enjoy the cancel culture you created.’
YES, WELL, LOCKDOWNS AND BANS ON ELECTIVE PROCEDURES WILL DO THAT: Cancer screenings fell early in pandemic, study finds.
SATIRE… OR IS IT? Biden Official Confirms Plans to Ban Fried Chicken and Grape Drink. “Some have raised concerns about the menthol ban, arguing that it would lead to more interactions with the police which could result in more black fatalities during these encounters. However, the FDA assures us the number of black men shot to death by police will pale in comparison to the warm fuzzy feeling white progressives will have knowing African Americans are no longer smoking Newports, eating Popeye’s, or drinking carbonated grape-flavored beverages.”
GOODER AND HARDER: Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association Blasts Latest Arbitrary Indoor Dining Bans in 15 Counties.
Oregon’s last Republican governor left office in 1987.
DEMOCRATS SURE GOT IT GOOD: Howie Carr: “Which septuagenarian pol represents the greater threat to the United States — Rudy Giuliani or John Forbes Kerry? Yet it was Rudy’s home and office in Manhattan that were raided Wednesday by the corrupt FBI, while America’s Gigolo continued to get a total pass on the amazing revelation that he’s been whispering top-secret U.S./Israeli intelligence to one of the top leaders of Iran, which leads the world in state-sponsored terrorism.”
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: The Music City Meltdown: A decade ago Nashville’s rise seemed inevitable, but fiscal recklessness left the city ill-prepared to absorb the pandemic’s economic blows.
For more than a decade, Nashville, Tenn., has been one of America’s hippest and fastest-growing cities. Anchored by the country-music industry and boosted by a hospitable state tax climate, the city and surrounding region attracted businesses and residents. While its music scene made it a tourist mecca, Nashville also lured a generation of college-educated transplants, earning a position as one of the country’s new “brainpower cities.”
These days Nashville is making its way onto other, less distinguished lists. The Institute for Truth in Accounting recently ranked it one of the country’s five worst “sinkhole” cities, with $22,000 in debt per resident. Its bonded debt alone has increased by more than $1.25 billion in 10 years. City leaders have used deficit financing to balance Nashville’s books and spent much of the city’s reserve funds. The Tennessee comptroller has threatened a state takeover, and even the Biden administration’s lavish stimulus isn’t enough to plug Nashville’s budget hole. Amid all this, angry local groups are trying to spur a special election to roll back a gigantic property tax increase. What was once called a miracle in Music City increasingly looks like a meltdown.
That’s quite a dubious record of achievement for a city with enviable economic growth. Rebounding robustly from the 2008-09 recession, greater Nashville gained nearly 300,000 jobs between 2010 and early 2020, an almost 40% increase. Employment in its hospitality industry expanded by 53% as developers added thousands of hotel rooms. Financial-services jobs grew by 46.9%, while professional services employment leapt by 69%. By March 2020, Nashville boasted an unemployment rate of only 3.4%.
With economic growth came more government revenue. Sales-tax collections increased by $200 million, or more than 70%, in a decade. Receipts from other fees and levies grew even faster. Nashville’s main tax, its property levy, increased more slowly. A state law limits the effect of rising property values on taxes, but even so the city’s total budget expanded over a decade by 50% to $2.33 billion.
Still, Nashville had trouble making do. Its leaders cultivated an ambition to make it a world-class city. Nashville built bright, shiny new things with debt. It spent more than $600 million to construct the Music City Center with bonds financed by hotel taxes and other fees. City leaders also built a minor-league baseball stadium for $91 million and a downtown amphitheater that cost $52 million. Now they have pledged city debt to help construct a $275 million soccer stadium.
No amount of money is enough when your city is run by shitty leftist politicians. And that’s been Nashville for at least a decade.
MORE VOTES THAN ANY OTHER PRESIDENT IN HISTORY: The Ratings for Joe Biden’s First Address to Congress Are in, and They’re Really Bad.
HMM. WHAT’S THE LEAST-HYPOTHESIS EXPLANATION FOR THIS? Flu has disappeared worldwide during the COVID pandemic.
Pretty sure it’s that many cases of flu have been misdiagnosed as Covid.
AT THIS POINT I DON’T THINK HE COULD DRIVE A CAMARO DOWN PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE: Biden faces pressure to drive gasoline and diesel cars out of the US.
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: North Korea bans criticism of China as economic dependence grows due to pandemic. “Some North Koreans really dislike Chinese leadership for saying publicly that China is part of a ‘socialist brotherhood’ with North Korea, but Beijing does very little to support us even though we are living through economic hardship due to the coronavirus. Even the authorities in the past have been wary of our unconditional dependence on China and the expectations that they’ll take care of us, saying ‘Don’t trust China too much.’”
NOT THE NEW CENSORS IN THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY: What’s “Normal” in America? More than 200 employees of Simon and Schuster want to stop publishing anyone involved with the Trump administration because it wasn’t a “normal” chapter in American history.
For a long time, dictators, from the European tyrants of the 1930s to the military leaders of the Latin American juntas, skillfully used the violent excesses of dissenters to seize and preserve power. Now so-called liberal “resistance” to “fascism” justifies its attacks on freedom of speech by citing the threat posed by a former American president. Susan Sontag famously enraged the New Left by calling Communism “fascism with a human face.” The current woke movement has all the trappings of fascism with an anti-fascist face.
And fascism seems perfectly normal to them.
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