CHANGE: For the First Time Ever, the Best-Selling Carmaker in America Isn’t an American Carmaker.
YET ANOTHER RED-PILL POPPER: Dr. Drew Channels Trump: The Press Is the Enemy of the People.
JOE DID IT: Worse than Trump on economy, US might. “There appears to be no bottom to President Joe Biden’s drop in the polls. While he has gone from liberal hero to 1,000-pound drag on Democrats in record time, Biden has now hit lows that neither of his two predecessors did even at their worst points.”
As his former boss tried to warn us, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.”
AS LONG AS THEY’RE NOT FROM A SECRET NAZI MOONBASE: The next generation of lunar rovers might move like flying saucers.
UH-OH. I SMELL ANOTHER CHEAP CARTOON-CROSSOVER: “The first case of flurona – the combination of both influenza and coronavirus – has been detected at the COVID-19 testing center at the Getty Center” in Los Angeles.
GLEICHSCHALTUNG: Starbucks Serves Its Employees a Cup of Joe Biden. “Starbucks is requiring its America-based employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to comply with Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on private companies with 100 or more employees.”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Biden Withholds Annual Report on Deportations.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not release its annual report in 2021, a departure from standard agency practice since at least 2011. In each of the last nine years, ICE released the report in the final weeks of the calendar year, most recently on Dec. 23, 2020 during the Trump administration.
It is unclear whether ICE has completed the report, which provides a lengthy summary of the agency’s enforcement and removal operations, as well as immigration-related security threats. A spokeswoman for the immigration agency told the Washington Free Beacon a release date for the report has not been determined.
The absence of the 2021 annual report has prompted outrage on Capitol Hill. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) questioned the motives behind the White House’s secrecy on the topic of immigration.
Oh, I think we understand their motives.
21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Scientists Propose Jumpstarting Mars’ Magnetic Field to Make It Habitable. Even NASA is on board.
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Babies born during pandemic at greater risk for developmental delays, study finds.
UPDATED AND REPOSTED: RealClearInvestigations’ Jan. 6-BLM Riots Comparison.
- The summer 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 23 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.
- Authorities have pursued the largely Trump-supporting Capitol rioters with substantially more vigor than suspected wrongdoers in the earlier two cases, and prosecutors and judges alike have weighed Capitol riot defendants’ political views in adjudicating their cases.
- Dozens of accused Capitol rioters have been held in pretrial detention for months, where they have allegedly been mistreated.
- In the summer 2020 riots, the vast majority of charges were dismissed, as they were in the Inauguration 2017 unrest. Prosecutors have dropped a single Capitol riot case.
Related: Trump Just Rained on the Democrats’ January 6th Parade. “It seems like Trump realized that, as he cites the machinations of the January 6th committee as the reason for his cancellation. Whatever the reason, it’s a smart move on his part to deny them the viral clips and talking points they were banking on. I’m sure he and his advisers sat down and figured out what the game was here and chose not to play along. Now, what do the Democrats have? Some low-rated CNN coverage and a short speech from Joe Biden that no one will watch unless he has another senile moment that causes it to go viral. And that’s if the iced-up roads in the city of Washington, D.C., are even cleared in time for them to hold any live events. As it stands, it might snow again on Thursday.”
More: Is The FBI Ever Going To Get Around To Finding The Jan. 6 Pipe Bomber, Or Nah?
Heck, We’re still waiting for them to uncover the motive of the 2017 Las Vegas mass murderer. Or as America’s Newspaper of Record noted last year: FBI Assures Nation They Will Get Back To Figuring Out Why That Guy Shot 400 People In Vegas After They’re Done Investigating Parent-Teacher Meetings.
RALPH NORTHAM’S ADMINISTRATION WINDS DOWN IN STYLE: I-95 winter storm traffic disaster: Drivers are fuming and demanding answers from Virginia officials. “‘We had absolutely no idea what we were going into,’ Catalano added. ‘You had all these fancy signs on the highway [saying], ‘Mask up, mask up’, ‘Save lives, mask up.’ Turn the signs on and say, ‘Turn around,’ you know, ‘50-mile backup,’ something.’”
UPDATE: Northam Moonwalks His Foot Into His Mouth After I-95 Fiasco:
Angry drivers tired from having to sit in cold vehicles with little to nothing to eat and nowhere to go to the bathroom as temperatures hovered below freezing are directing the blame squarely at Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and the Virginia Dept. of Transportation, both of which drivers have said were ill-prepared to handle the storm before the first snowflake ever fell.
They have a pretty strong case, considering what NR’s Dominic Pino wrote last night detailing the notification failures, what the VDOT did and did not do in advance of the storm, the years of corruption within the department, as well as their botched handling of other situational things as the crisis unfolded.
But it’s what Northam said in response to the fiasco on I-95 that has left a lot of people scratching their heads. As the Washington Post reported, Northam took no responsibility for what happened and instead blamed the drivers:
State Police and transportation officials took to the air to monitor progress because highway traffic cameras went dark amid power outages, Northam said. While expressing sympathy for stranded motorists, Northam said more should have heeded warnings to stay off the roads.
“We gave warnings, and people need to pay attention to these warnings, and the less people that are on the highways when these storms hit, the better,” he said. “I feel for these people that are stranded but just want to let them know we’re doing everything we can to get to them in a very challenging situation.”
Good grief. Think he could fit his foot any further into his mouth on that one?
While it’s good – and pretty standard advice from state officials – to advise people not to get on the roads if they don’t have to when bad weather events like this one are forecast, it strikes me as extremely poor form not to mention bad leadership to blame the people who got stuck, especially when you don’t know the circumstances for why they were on the road in the first place.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’ sense of timing remains as superb as ever:
(Updated and bumped.)
THIS IS CERTAINLY THEIR GOAL. Welcome to the end of democracy: A rising tide of money and administrative power defines the rising autocracy. “We bemoan autocracies in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and China but largely ignore the more subtle authoritarian trend in the West. Don’t expect a crudely effective dictatorship out of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: we may remain, as we are now, nominally democratic, but be ruled by a technocratic class empowered by greater powers of surveillance than those enjoyed by even the nosiest of dictatorships.”
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: USC’s Very Different Treatment of Ben Shapiro and a Muslim Student Who Urged Killing Jews. “This student has personally threatened to murder Jews and anyone who supports the Jewish state of Israel. She has publicly praised the murder of Jews. And she has publicly praised Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction and the murder of every Jew. USC’s leadership admits that it has known about her life-endangering conduct since last summer, yet its response has been slow and virtually meaningless.”
MARK JUDGE: The New Movie Version Confirms It: Hillary Clinton Is Lady Macbeth.
The new film adaptation of Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare play, is wonderful. It’s also relevant in 2022. Directed by Joel Coen, the film uses elements of film noir and German expressionism to tell the story of the ambitious 11th century Scottish warrior who killed his own king to ascend to the throne. Macbeth’s mind unravels as he tries to control the fallout from his evil act. At the end (spoiler alert!) he is beheaded and replaced on the throne.
Macbeth could also be the story of an ancestor of Hillary Clinton. Clinton has often been compared to Lady Macbeth, the power-hungry wife of Macbeth. The new film makes that analogy even more pronounced.
Macbeth the man is magnificently played in the new film by Denzel Washington. A proud general, Macbeth is only outdone in his ambition by his wife, Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand). After the Scottish King Duncan hears the news that his best generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated two invading armies, Macbeth is named the thane of Cawdor. Yet it’s not good enough.
Macbeth has heard a witch’s prophecy that he himself will be king one day. Macbeth writes to Lady Macbeth, telling her all that has happened. The couple then invites the king to visit them at Inverness, their castle. The Macbeths then plot to murder the king so that Macbeth himself can attain the throne.
Exit quote: “Unlike Lady Macbeth, who comes to a bad end in the play, Hillary refuses to go away. She’s giving a master class, doing interviews on TV, writing books. Her lust for personal power is evident even through her strained, fake smile. As Shakespeare put it, a ‘false face must hide what the false heart doth know.’”
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: New Manhattan DA Claims Decriminalization ‘Will Make Us Safer’ in Memo to Staff.
As Tom Cotton wrote last month: Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.
FLASHBACK: Gender Inequity Among the Gender Equity Enforcers.
We looked at a random sample of 52 colleges and universities across the country. (Download the data in PDF here.) The sample included public and private institutions, and we attempted to create geographical balance. The only other restriction was that we looked for institutions that have some degree of national recognition. . . .
Findings
We examined 52 institutions. All have Title IX Coordinators as mandated by law for all institutions receiving federal funding.
At 43 of them (82.7 percent), the Title IX Coordinator is a woman. At 9 of the institutions (17.3 percent), the Title IX Coordinator is a man.
In 24 of the 52 institutions, we found lists of staff members beyond the Title IX Coordinator who work on Title IX issues or are listed as responsible for dealing with sexual harassment issues. In these 24 cases, 49 of the additional 67 staff (73.1 percent) are women. All our assignments are on the basis of names and sometimes photographs. Our inability to identify transgender individuals may marginally affect the accuracy of our tabulations. . . .
By this metric, women are substantially overrepresented in the position of Title IX Coordinator. To be “representative of the student body,” approximately 27 to 29 of the 52 Title IX Coordinator positions (~55 percent) should have been held by women. But in our sample, 43 of the positions (83 percent) are held by women. Likewise women appear overrepresented in the staff positions of the relevant campus offices, but the level of overrepresentation was less than for the top positions (73.1 percent of the positions are held by women).
Considering that the overwhelming preponderance of sexual harassment allegations are directed by women at men, the disproportion of women to men in the positions charged with interpreting and enforcing the sexual harassment rules is a legitimate concern.
Things are if anything worse in the corporate world. “In an experiment that involved sending out more than 2,500 resumes either with or without photos of the applicant, economics researchers Bradley Ruffle at Ben-Gurion University and Ze’ev Shtudiner at Ariel University Centre sought to answer the question of whether being good looking could help you find a job. The answer surprised them: Not if you’re a woman. Pretty women faced an uphill struggle to get a chance at a job. The economists hadn’t reckoned on the fact that 93 percent of the HR staffers deciding whether to call in someone for an interview were female. It turns out that HR women (who also tend to be young and single and hence still in the dating market for men) are eager to meet with handsome men. But they’re jealous of beautiful women.”
NOT ENOUGH: 1 Million Americans Fled To Red States In 2021, But What Are Those States Doing For Them?
As Joy Pullman suggests, it’s not enough just to not be California or Illinois.
“COVID’S COUCH POTATOES”: Teens eat more, exercise less. “Only 9 percent of teenagers are physically active for an hour a day — the recommended amount — says a new study. That’s down from 16 percent before the pandemic, reports Chris Melore.”
THE NEW AMERICAN STASI: “Working with information from online sleuths who style themselves as ‘Sedition Hunters,’ the authorities have made more than 700 arrests — with little sign of slowing down.”
And yet no one has been charged with sedition. I wonder why?
“CASES” WAS ALWAYS A SCAREMONGERING METRIC: Doctors Finally Get Real About Covid Hospitalizations Amid Omicron Spike. “An exacerbation of a chronic illness is not a Covid hospitalization. If a person with diabetes goes into diabetic ketoacidosis because of a viral infection, you treat the diabetic complication. Hospitals frequently see these complications in people with chronic conditions with influenza, pneumonia, and other acute illnesses. This phenomenon is not unique to Covid. However, it seems everyone has forgotten.”
BIDEN TO PUT MEN IN WOMEN’S JAILS: And so the insanity marches on, with His Fraudulency preparing an executive order that, according to The Federalist, which obtained a draft copy, will enable men who claim to feel like women to transfer to women’s jails.
GET IN SHAPE: 5-Minute Core Exercises for Seniors: Daily Routines to Build Balance and Boost Confidence. #CommissionEarned
WHY ARE DIVERSITY OFFICES SUCH CESSPITS OF HATE? Study uncovers antisemitic behavior among university diversity, equity and inclusion staff.
WHEW: NASA successfully deploys complex sunshield on James Webb Space Telescope. “The telescope was far too large to launch to space in its final configuration, so mission designers crafted the telescope to unfold after launch. The deployment relies on hundreds of mechanisms and moving parts, and everything has to go right in order for JWST to function. Along the way, there are up to 344 single-point failures, deployments without any backups that must execute as designed or else they could jeopardize the entire mission.”
JULIE BURCHILL: Why ‘Hot Mess’ women of the world – think Bridget Jones and Fleabag – are doomed to be screwed over by patronising men.
While they might be celebrated by some as being a progression from the Hollywood honey or Chelsea chick, in reality Hot Messes appeal to the worst side of men – if women are a mess already, they’re going to be even easier for men of bad intent to mess with. A new show runs this month at the Soho Theatre in which the comedienne Liz Kingsman takes on the idea of the Hot Mess Dream Girl. She told the Guardian: ‘I don’t relate to those messy-women narratives. None of my female friends talk about their sex lives a lot. And I’d be hard pushed to find a single one who is aimless: everyone is hustling and working really hard.’
The Hot Mess Woman does exist though; I’ve known a few, but sadly they’ve long passed their youthful hotness which is the one time when being *ditsy* can be viewed as in any way cute. They tend to think of themselves as *feisty* and *sassy* and *free spirits* – far too *vibrant* to bother with the boring bits of life, such as paying one’s bills on time. When they go bankrupt, they’re amazed. But the minute they bounce out from the claims court, they’ll be off buying candles costing the best part of fifty quid and cushions saying I SEE SHOES!
Read the whole thing.
IT ISN’T A HEALTH EMERGENCY IF YOU HAVE THE LUXURY OF FIRING HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS: Michigan Getting Pummeled by COVID After Firing Unvaxxed Healthcare Workers.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: 2022 Preview: The biggest higher ed legal, policy debates coming up this year.
DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE: China mass harvesting Americans’ Facebook, Twitter data to bolster spying, propaganda. “The Chinese Internet-monitoring tools, known as public opinion analysis software, were reportedly developed over the past decade to warn of sensitive information being spread online to help China find sources of criticisms against the Chinese government. The tools were originally used to monitor internal dissent, but are now being used to gain information on foreign targets.”
OUR RULING CLASS IS CLOSELY ATTUNED TO STYLE, BUT VERY WEAK ON SUBSTANCE. By design.
Well, one of them has been making Covid policy for the past two years. And another is currently residing in the White House.
RED-PILLED: Canadian Journalist Wakes Up to Wokeism.
GOOD POINT:
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: ‘Democracy’ Is the Dems’ New Code Word for ‘Communism.’ “What the Democrats are referring to as democracy is anything but. They want elections to be taken over by the federal government. They want one-party rule. They are big fans of government control of the media and censorship.”
MORE ON THE EMORY LAW JOURNAL’S REFUSAL TO PUBLISH LARRY ALEXANDER: This piece is from Legal Insurrection.
BRADLEY THOMPSON: Who Shall Educate the Children?
WELL, YES: Corporate Media’s Jan. 6 Anniversary Coverage Is All About Silencing Republicans.
Democrats have been clear for some time about their desire to designate their political opponents as domestic terrorists.
STAND FAST, SENATOR: Manchin Deflates Democrats’ Hopes of Changing Filibuster, Passing Election Bills.
In comments to reporters Tuesday, Mr. Manchin said he was engaged in talks about possible changes to the filibuster rule, which currently requires the votes of 60 senators to advance most bills. But, he said, any changes should have the buy-in of Republicans as well, and he was leery of Democrats going it alone.
“Any way you can do a rules change to where everyone’s involved and basically that’s a rule that usually will stay—that’s what you should be pursuing,” Mr. Manchin told reporters on Tuesday. “Being open to a rules change that would create a nuclear option; it’s very, very difficult,” he said about lowering the filibuster threshold. “So it’s a heavy lift.”
His comments came as many Senate Democrats have stepped up their calls for altering the filibuster to make it easier to pass legislation. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said that Democrats would put elections legislation on the floor and then would attempt to enact rules changes if Republicans again filibustered the legislation.
Flashback: Schumer Called Eliminating Filibuster ‘A Doomsday for Democracy.’
BIDEN PLANS TO BEAT BIG MEAT! Biden To Invest $1 Billion In Producers After Blaming Inflation On Greedy Meat Mongers. “The meat industry is consolidated specifically because the federal gov’t overregulates it. Ask any farmer. As one of many examples, ranchers can’t slaughter their own meat due to @USDA regs. As usual, Democrats blame the private sector for problems of their own creation.”
(Classical allusion in headline.)
Related: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned
LEFTISTS DISCOVERING YET ANOTHER LIMIT TO POLITICIZED FOOTBALL: Leftists completely lose it after Aaron Rodgers says Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is on his bookshelf: ‘Trade him. F*** it.’
GOODER AND HARDER: Manhattan’s ‘progressive’ new DA Alvin Bragg just gave a green light for anarchy. “Specifically, Bragg says his office ‘will not seek a carceral sentence’ for anything short of murder or deadly assault (“carceral” being progressive double-speak for prison). Also, he says minor crime won’t be prosecuted at all.”
Great business opportunity for the “extralegal norms enforcement” formerly provided by the Corleones.
UPDATE: Seth Barrett Tillman: Impeaching Prosecutors Who Fail To Prosecute. “With the election of the Soros-funded prosecutors, and radical innovations in prosecutorial discretion, and changed incidence (including increased incidence) in crime, those who (politically) oppose such policies will naturally look to push back against these prosecutors and their policy changes.” But read the whole thing.
My view: Refusing to prosecute in a particular case in the interests of justice is prosecutorial discretion. Refusing to prosecute in a whole class of cases for policy reasons is arrogating legislative power to oneself, and an abuse of power.
FROM PRINCETON SCHOLAR KEITH WHITTINGTON: The Value of Ideological Diversity among University Faculty.
AMY WAX REVIEWS MY BOOK: “Affirmative Action: Past, Present, and Future.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Chicago Public Schools to Cancel In-Person Classes in Anticipation of Expected Teachers Union Strike.
We’ve descended into some sort of bizarre hell-world in which David Alexrod is a voice of sanity:
Ideally, education dollars should follow students all the time.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Cuomo Gets Free Pass from Manhattan DA for COVID Nursing Home Deaths Cover-up.
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS: Crib Notes From the Joe Rogan–Dr. McCullogh Interview Everyone Is Talking About.
Rogan: So you believe this is a premeditated thing that they were doing? So they realized that in order to get people enthusiastic about taking this vaccine, the best way to do that was to not have a protocol for treatment.
McCullough: It’s not just my idea now. It’s completely laid out by the book by Dr. Pam Popper, the book recently published by Peter Breggin, COVID-19 and The Global Predators: We Are the Prey. I wrote one of the introductions. Dr. Leefleet and Dr. Vladimir Lesenko wrote the other introductions. These books are basically nonfiction. They have 1,000 citations in the Breggin book, showing how it was coordinated and planned. Now Bobby Kennedy has his book out, The Real Anthony Fauci. I’m the most mentioned physician in that book. I can tell you that if you want to find the evidence that Moderna was working on the vaccine before the virus ever emanated out of the lab, if you wanted to find the collusions and the operations between the Gates Foundation and Gavby and Sepi and Pfizer and Moderna and the vaccine manufacturers and the Wuhan lab and the National Institutes of Health and Ralph Barrack and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and how all this was organized, if you want to see the Johns Hopkins planning seminar called the SPARS Pandemic in 2017, where they had a symposium, people showed up. They wrote up their symposium findings. They published this. It says it’s going to be a coronavirus. It’s going to be related to MERS and SARS. It’s going to come over here to the United States. It’s going to shut down cities and frighten people. There’s going to be confusion regarding the drug hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. And we’re going to utilize all that in order to railroad the population into mass vaccination. It’s laid out in the Johns Hopkins sparse pandemic training seminar. The only thing they got wrong was the year; they said it was going to be 2025. Instead, it landed a few years early.
Exit quote: “The left is quick to denounce Rogan every chance they get. YouTube deleted the video of Rogan speaking with McCullough. The left accused him of taking a horse dewormer to beat the bat flu. (He didn’t.) Why does the left fear him? He is crushing everyone, including Tucker Carlson, in the ratings.”
Speaking of Rogan’s traffic:
NEW YORK SUN: Attainting Trump.
By suggesting criminal charges could be in the cards for President Trump, the House committee investigating the events of January 6 isn’t just weakening their case before the Supreme Court. They’re also skating close to the constitutional prohibition on bills of attainder. That’s one of the limits Americans placed on Congress, enjoining what the Supreme Court has called “trial by legislature” — exactly what the January 6 committee appears eager to conduct.
The Constitution forbids bills of attainder as “a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function,” Chief Justice Warren explained in United States v. Brown. Under the British monarchy, such bills were used to punish without a trial individuals accused of disloyalty, treason, or any conduct the parliament found objectionable. The Framers, Chief Justice Warren wrote, “sought to guard against such dangers by limiting legislatures to the task of rule-making.”
Members of the January 6 committee seem to have lost sight of that wisdom. So far, they’ve been racking up victories in their effort, in federal court, to breach Mr. Trump’s executive privilege. The Supreme Court, though, has yet to decide whether to hear Mr. Trump’s appeal asking to shield his papers. It strikes us that the committee’s chairman has handed Mr. Trump’s lawyers valuable ammunition of Congress’s intent.
It’s an abuse of legislative power, that — like the dual frivolous impeachments of Trump based on bogus evidence — sets a precedent for more abuses in the future.
MEGAN FOX: Montana Judiciary Caught Lobbying Against Judicial Accountability in Email Scandal. “In April, the Montana judiciary was caught red-handed lobbying against bills that would lead to more accountability for judges. This comes right on the heels of the scathing Wall Street Journal report that found hundreds of judges refusing to recuse themselves from hearing cases in which they had financial investments — a story that reached even the Supreme Court — as the judiciary is being exposed.”
January 4, 2022
WELL: Georgia opens investigation into possible illegal ballot harvesting in 2020 election. “Georgia authorities have launched an investigation into an allegation of systematic ballot harvesting during the state’s 2020 general election and subsequent U.S. Senate runoff and may soon issue subpoenas to secure evidence, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed to Just the News. . . . According to interviews and documents reviewed by Just the News, Raffensperger’s office received a detailed complaint from conservative voter integrity group True the Vote on Nov. 30 saying it had assembled evidence that scores of activists worked with nonprofit groups to collect and deliver thousands of absentee ballots, often during wee-hour operations, to temporary voting drop boxes distributed around the state during the pandemic.”
Ballot-harvesting is illegal under Georgia law.
“BACK WHEN HE WAS RIGHT WHERE YOU WANTED HIM, YOU LOVED HIS FAT FACE. OR SO YOU SAY.” At WaPo, freaking out over J.D. Vance’s beard. Plus: “I don’t know how the beard symbolizes that, other than that those things are masculine. How weird to get caught up in his beard!”
The left hates, fears, and envies traditional masculinity. That’s been plain for several decades.
Plus, from the comments at the link: “Maybe they fear the return of the bearded Republican politician like Lincoln or Grant who will treat Democrats like they need to be treated.”
Well, today’s Democrats are also pro-slavery. House Democrats Won’t Schedule Vote on Bill to Sanction Chinese Slave Labor.
And: “‘J.D. Vance didn’t used [sic] to have one.’ Pretty much true of everyone with a beard.”
FLASHBACK: Obama’s iPhone Flub:
As President Obama fumbled with an iPhone, the blogosphere recalled he had earlier falsely bad-mouthed President Rutherford B. Hayes as a technological troglodyte. It’s not his error that annoys but his arrogance.
For a man who would have Americans believe that he and his big government are smarter than anyone, it might help if the president could show some evidence of it when he lectures others.
Instead, Obama bumbled around on an iPhone at a campaign stop with no idea how to master the device, triggering a viral response on the Internet about his past pontifications on history and technology.
Indeed it did.
Plus this: “Hayes unleashed the free market. Obama not only has done the opposite, he hasn’t even mastered today’s telephone.” Ouch.
ANNALS OF INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION: Montana Judiciary Caught Lobbying Against Judicial Accountability in Email Scandal. “The Montana judiciary is in deep trouble. The Wall Street Journal picked up on a local story that has been exploding since last April but has just now started to get national attention. In April, the Montana judiciary was caught red-handed lobbying against bills that would lead to more accountability for judges. This comes right on the heels of the scathing Wall Street Journal report that found hundreds of judges refusing to recuse themselves from hearing cases in which they had financial investments — a story that reached even the Supreme Court — as the judiciary is being exposed.”
OPEN THREAD: It’s a sad, sad world.
“I’M GOING TO SHUT DOWN THE VIRUS, NOT THE COUNTRY:” The Slutty ’Hot Vax’ Summer That Never Happened. New video from Reason TV:
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s Mars orbiter snaps amazing selfies above Red Planet.
WHY ISN’T VA. GOV. GLENN YOUNGKIN DOING ANYTHING ABOUT THE SNOW, ask people too dumb to know that Youngkin isn’t governor yet.
Meanwhile, people who know better are making the obvious reality-based points:
Related:
THIS IS A JOKE, BUT IT’S ALSO PROBABLY PART OF THE 2024 DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM:
ACCORDING TO THE MEDIA, THAT’S THE ONLY TIME IT’S IN PERIL: Democracy is not in crisis just because Democrats are losing.
But then “our democracy” is just a code word for “untrammeled Democratic Party rule.”
Plus: “Personally, I suspect a lot of the panic over the anniversary of Jan. 6 is really connected to another anniversary that is coming up. In about two more weeks, Joe Biden will have been president for a full year. You may have noticed that it hasn’t been going very well for him or his party. Violent crime spiked last year and then, in many places, spiked again this year. The economy was looking pretty decent until inflation started to spike and turned out not to be as transitory as predicted. The pandemic was looking pretty good until the delta wave spiked and now more Americans have died since Biden took office than before that. The border situation was looking pretty good before Biden took office, then apprehensions spiked to a historic high, literally the highest numbers ever recorded in a single fiscal year. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was approved of by most people in theory, but it became a deadly disaster where Americans and former allies were left behind to the tender mercies of the Taliban. On top of all of that, Biden’s agenda is stalled, his approval ratings are deep underwater and Democrats’ control of Congress is very much at risk, so much so that many are retiring rather than contemplate a future in the minority. Much better to talk about the anniversary of last year’s riot than how the Biden administration is doing one year in.”
January 20, 2021 did far more harm to American than January 6.
WHILE COMPLAINING ABOUT TRUMP’S THREAT TO “OUR DEMOCRACY,” LEFT STARTS BATTLESPACE PREPARATION FOR STEALING FUTURE ELECTIONS: Tur Fears ‘Next Election Won’t Be Fair,’ Hopes for 2024 ‘Contingency Plan.’
EVIDENCE THAT HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN CURIOUS, AND HAD POOR JUDGMENT: Mysterious Footprints Suggest Neanderthals Climbed a Volcano Right After It Erupted.
WHEN THEY PRY MY COLD, DEAD HANDS: Off the steering wheel of my pickup, though the same will apply when they come after my 1911 R1 and my 1873 Springfield 45-70 U.S. Calvary Carbine. If you recall the Anti-Destination League, you know exactly what I mean.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Joe Biden erroneously states it’s ‘2020’ in post-New Year’s gaffe.
SO THE RUSSIAN ASAT “TEST” WAS MORE OF A SUB-ROSA ATTACK: Russian ASAT debris imperils DoD, NRO sats, while ISS risks increase: COMSPOC. “The COMSPOC analysis also shows that Russian government claims that the debris would not harm the International Space Station are blatantly not true. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case.”
A friend comments: “Note that while they’ve been bitching about Starlink, the Chinese haven’t said a word about Russia.”
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Shot: How Tim Kaine helped persuade Virginians — and conservatives — to act on climate change.
—The Washington Post, July 25, 2016.
Chaser: Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine among hundreds trapped overnight in snowstorm traffic jam.
—ABC News, today.
THIS MAY SAY AS MUCH ABOUT IN-PERSON VISITS AS ABOUT TELEMEDICINE: Telemedicine may be as good as in-person visits for managing chronic illnesses.
MICHAEL WALSH: Monarch Fauci Turns Increasingly Desperate.
For relevance.
THIS ASSUMES HE CAN REMEMBER THEM: More Words That Will Haunt Joe Biden Forever.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS…WELL, PRETTY CONSISTENT, ACTUALLY:
Shot: CBS Warns GOP Midterm Wins One of the ‘Top Global Risks’ in 2022.
On Tuesday, CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil and Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer sounded the alarm over the possibility of Republicans winning big in the 2022 midterm elections, something they hysterically labeled one of “the top global risks” in the year ahead. The pair claimed any GOP victory in the midterms or the 2024 presidential contest would be seen as “illegitimate.”
“A new report is detailing what it says are the biggest risks facing the globe in 2022 and the findings may surprise you,” Dokoupil declared. Turning to Bremmer, he touted: “Number three, midterm elections here in the U.S., a top risk for 2022. How come?”
In reply, Bremmer wailed:
Well, maybe the least of the surprises. This is the most important midterm election in American history. We have January 6 coming up in just a day and as you know, since the profoundly challenged elections of 2020, no lessons have been learned at all in the United States. The country is much more divided and a large number of Americans, 64% in an NPR poll yesterday, say they thought the United States’ democracy was in crisis.
He went on to specifically identify the Republican Party as the source of the supposed global threat: “…the United States has an election process that is increasingly broken, increasingly delegitimized. And the midterm elections, especially if you have significant win for a Trump-led Republican Party, means that 2024 is going to be seen as illegitimate and potentially a constitutional crisis.”
—NewsBusters, today.
Chaser: Then-New Host of Face the Nation Advised Obama in 2013 to ‘Destroy the GOP:’
John Dickerson, replacing Bob Schieffer as the new host of Face the Nation, will continue the same level of objectivity that CBS has brought to viewers for half a century. In 1964, when CBS was one third of all television news, Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr repeatedly smeared Barry Goldwater as a crypto-Nazi. His successor, Dan Rather, blew himself up in spectacular fashion with RatherGate in 2004, as dissected by all those bloggers in their Pajamas, to coin a Website name. In 2007, Rather’s successor, Scott Pelley, violating 32 flavors of Godwin’s Law in the same fashion as Cronkite, “was asked why he refused to include global warming skeptics in his reporting. He responded, ‘If I do an interview with [Holocaust survivor] Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?’”, as NewsBusters noted.
—Ed Driscoll.com, April 12, 2015.
Today, CBS no doubt views 2015 as the good old days of the GOP. If Republicans do take back the House in November, will CBS declare that “The voters had a temper tantrum last week,” as the late Peter Jennings of ABC said in November of 1994, or will they declare the elections “illegitimate” as CNN’s Ana Navarro did today: Ana Navarro Says Donald Trump Was Illegitimately Elected in 2016 During Wild Rant on The View.
NONSENSE, IF THAT WERE TRUE DEMOCRATS AND JOURNALISTS — BUT I REPEAT MYSELF – WOULD BE OBSEQUIOUSLY BACKING THEM: Young: Gun-Toting Politicians Are the Kim Jong-Uns of American Politics.
IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T RAISE? Viagra Lifts Woman Out of COVID Coma. “Before being put into the coma, Almeida agreed to partake in experimental COVID treatments if necessary. She was 72 hours away from having her ventilator turned off when her doctors decided to inject her with a large dose of Viagra.”
BEST SELLER IN ECONOMIC THEORY: Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. #CommissionEarned
YOU DON’T WIN FRIENDS WITH SALAD: Organic packaged salads tied to E. coli outbreak in 6 states.
SO MUCH FOR ERIC ADAMS’ TOUGH ON CRIME STANCE: Manhattan DA to stop seeking prison sentences in slew of criminal cases.
Manhattan’s new district attorney has ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences in a slew of criminal cases, according to a set of progressive policies made public Tuesday.
In his first memo to staff on Monday, Alvin Bragg said his office “will not seek a carceral sentence” except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption.
“This rule may be excepted only in extraordinary circumstances based on a holistic
analysis of the facts, criminal history, victim’s input (particularly in cases of
violence or trauma), and any other information available,” the memo reads.Assistant district attorneys must also now keep in mind the “impacts of incarceration” including on public safety, barriers to housing and employment, financial cost and race disparities, Bragg instructed.
In cases where prosecutors do seek to put a convict behind bars, the request can be for no more than 20 years for a determinate sentence, meaning one that can’t be reviewed or changed by a parole board.
Two guesses as to who funded Bragg’s campaign: “Soros also donated $1 million to Alvin Bragg’s successful DA campaign in Manhattan, funneling the cash through the Color of Change political action committee, according to public filings.”
As Tom Cotton wrote last month: Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.
DAVID DEAVEL: Desmond Tutu (1931-2021): Remembering Heroes and their Limitations. “The death of South African archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu at the age of 90 on December 26, 2021, marks the definitive end of an era. With Nelson Mandela, his moral witness and advocacy helped to end the reign of South Africa’s Apartheid regime that kept black South Africans separate and desperately unequal. In today’s age in which free speech and colorblind policies are labeled as ‘white supremacist,’ it’s good to be reminded that real white supremacy as embodied in the South African regime actually happened and has largely been removed from the globe. It is also good to be reminded of the very real heroism Tutu exhibited. But, finally, it’s also good to be reminded of Tutu’s post-Apartheid misjudgments. Unlike the woke left, we don’t need to tear down the statues of heroes with feet of clay or clouded minds. We do, however, need to be able to notice that heroes have these traits—and don’t need to be followed at all times.”
ALL OF OUR INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED, AND PEOPLE ARE NOTICING: FBI brass seen as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’: Poll. “Adoration of ‘G-men,’ once celebrated in the nonpartisan war on Al Capone and organized crime and now leading the effort to round up Jan. 6 Capitol riot suspects and Trump supporters, is apparently waning. In the latest sign of how today’s politics is dividing support for major Washington institutions, the latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows more people than not view the FBI as the punishing political arm of President Joe Biden.”
GREAT MOMENTS IN MESSAGING: Sheep, goats join in German efforts to encourage vaccination.
Tasty bits of bread did the trick for about 700 sheep and goats to join Germany’s drive to encourage more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The animals were arranged on Monday into the shape of a roughly 100-meter (330-foot) syringe in a field at Schneverdingen, south of Hamburg.
Shepherd Wiebke Schmidt-Kochan spent several days practicing with her animals, news agency dpa reported. But she said in the end, it wasn’t difficult to work things out — she laid out pieces of bread in the shape of the syringe, which the sheep and goats gobbled up when they were let out into the field.
Organizer Hanspeter Etzold said the action was aimed at people who are still hesitating to get vaccinated.
“Sheep are such likeable animals — maybe they can get the message over better,” he said.
Or perhaps not. Why, it’s as if:
MICHAEL BARONE: Plague-year immigrants headed to Trump country. Life is better in America.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
Shot: Fat-shaming by doctors, family, classmates is a global health problem, studies find.
—CNN, June 1st, 2021.
Chaser: CNN Finally Admits That Obesity Is a Contributing Factor in COVID Outcomes.
—Leslie Eastman, Legal Insurrection, today.
THINK OF IT AS PROFESSIONAL COURTESY: How Far Will the Left Go to Keep Criminals Out of Jail?
LOVE THE PICTURE: Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet Dishes Are Attracting Cats. The dish has a heating element to keep off snow and ice, and that attracts cats in the winter.
HE EXPANDED THE POWER AND PRESTIGE OF THE PROFESSIONAL/MANAGERIAL CLASS SO HE’S A HERO:
Meanwhile Trump threatened the power and prestige of the professional/managerial class, which was all it took to make him a villain.
Flashback: New status anxiety fuels Trump derangement.
COVID IS OVER: Cases up, deaths down.
Related: Denmark health chief says Omicron is bringing about the END of the pandemic and ‘we will have our normal lives back in two months.’ “But while infection numbers in countries with the variant are soaring, the expert said that the highly infectious Omicron appears milder than the Delta variant, and therefore more people will be infected without having serious symptoms. As a result, she said, this will provide a good level of immunity in the population.”
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Oh, Now The Atlantic Decrees Americans Are Paranoid about Catching Covid.
If you’re worried about Covid-19, then there’s an excellent chance that at least once over the past two years, either you’ve read an article or someone has sent you an article about the pandemic from The Atlantic magazine. Day after day, week after week, that publication offers at least one article or personal essay that warns you that, as bad as things may seem, they’re actually much worse and will probably get even worse tomorrow, all with a headline perfectly calibrated to go viral, no pun intended, among the most Covid-concerned: “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice.” “We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble.” “Covid Is Not Endemic Yet — And May Not Be for a Long Time.” “You Can Get COVID and the Flu at the Same Time.” “America Can’t Beat Omicron One Booster at a Time.”
The only thing that scares the staff of The Atlantic magazine more than Covid-19 is Kevin D. Williamson.
And now, seemingly out of nowhere, The Atlantic runs an essay by Benjamin Mazer, a physician specializing in laboratory medicine, headlined with the imperative, “Stop Wasting COVID Tests, People”:
It’s quite a pivot, from when COVID was seen as something only those icky Red State voters get: Let Omicron Spell the End of the Pandemic—and the Covid Shaming: “If only blue state liberals could acknowledge the truth: that no one should feel guilt or shame for getting a highly infectious disease. After all, we don’t shame people for getting chickenpox or seasonal influenza or any number of other highly contagious respiratory viruses or diseases. It’s something many liberals actually know in other contexts; they would never shame someone for getting an illness that is even related to their behavior, like obesity, alcoholism and some forms of diabetes. Why is this a thing with COVID?”
HEH: “While it’s true that I’ve always found it rather easy to mock the Democrats, it’s never been as nearly effortless as it is these days. They’ve become such a spectacle that it’s almost as if they’re doing it for my benefit.”
GALAXY BRAINS AT WORK: Glenn Youngkin Gets Blamed for I-95 Traffic Snarls as Actual Governor Ralph Northam Appears MIA.
Youngkin will be sworn in on Saturday, January 15th.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Get Away From It All in Antarctica, Get COVID Anyway.
Plus:
- Crypto goes LBGTQ
- VIDEO: Biden takes unscripted questions from the press, forgets what to do with them
- NYC, there’s something awful about you
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Biden disapproval hits new high as voters give him bad grades on economy, new CNBC/Change poll says.
Despite its being memory holed by the DNC-MSM, this detail may also be driving Biden’s low poll numbers:
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