Insanity Wrap needs to know: What’s in a name?
Answer: As much passive-aggressive progressive lecturing as you can squeeze into it.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
• The Founders never meant for elections to mean so much
• There’s Something Happening Here (The Honesty Remix)
• The Wall Street Journal is trolling us, personally
And so much more.
Shall we begin?
Your Daily Dose of Mostly Peaceful Protest
Office on fire now. Crowd chanted, "What did you see? Didn't see shi*!" pic.twitter.com/WCehCrWPgw
— Hannah Ray Lambert (@TheHannahRay) August 19, 2020
Hannah Ray Lambert has an entire video Twitter thread on last night’s mostly peaceful partly violent protest riot.
You’ll see multiple dumpsters set on fire, graffiti including “Burn bit*h burn,” windows being broken, an office torched, and the now all-too-typical street thuggery.
So Here’s Another Damn Thing We’re Supposed to Be Concerned About
Kamala Harris’ name isn’t difficult to pronounce. There’s no excuse for getting it wrong.
For whatever reason, the editorial page editors of USA Today felt it necessary or wise to publish a 700-word lecture by “civility and manners” writer Steven Petrow.
This is one of those times when we hope you’ll allow us to have read it for you, and not trouble yourself by clicking over and ruining your lunch.
Needless to say, in our age of tolerance, nothing more complicated than learning how to pronounce someone’s name is now a newspaper-worthy exercise in virtue signaling and public shaming.
Insanity Wrap is old enough to remember when a conversation might go like this:
IW: What a pleasure to meet you, KAM-a-lah.
KH: It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, thanks. Also, it’s pronounced Comma-La.
IW: Oops! I’ll get it right from now on. Kamala is a lovely name.
KH: Thank you!
At no point in this exchange was a buzzword-filled lecture required, nor an insinuation that Tucker Carlson enjoys some sort of Anglo-Saxon name pronunciation privilege.
If Petrow’s piece turns out to be the least-read item on USA Today’s op-ed page for 2020, Insanity Wrap wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.
Molon Labe
Philadelphia is seeing an increase in shootings…to combat the senseless gun violence, city council, Philadelphia Police and community groups organized a home gun check…urging residents to safely turn in firearms lying around their homes before they get into the wrong hands. pic.twitter.com/00QUqFOHrb
— Katie Katro (@KatieKatro6abc) August 15, 2020
Just as we started to frame a reply, we came across this response on Twitter: “Seriously? Defund the police and turn in your guns? Wow.”
As our friend Stephen Kruiser likes to say: Yeah, no.
Joe Biden’s Husband Is Running for Senate or Something
“Hey everyone, I’m Joe Biden’s husband…”
— Joe Bidenpic.twitter.com/zWxEBVLGI7
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 19, 2020
Insanity Wrap is reasonably certain that Joe still wears the pants in his family, although we are somewhat concerned that without help he wears them on his head.
UPDATE:
We have this from the comments:
And our reply:
So which is it? We’ve turned off our music and turned up our audio, and still hear “Jill.”
Maybe we’re just getting old.
If a correction is in order, please consider this to be that, along with an apology.
Because It Worked?
Why Americans Should Adopt the Sweden Model on Covid-19
Insanity Wrap’s usual beat is covering the weird and the crazy. While 2020 might be awful for everyone else, we like to think of this year as our own, personal full employment act.
But there’s so much insanity surrounding the Wuhan coronavirus that we thought we’d take a break from it for just this moment and present you with a dose of sanity, courtesy of Dr. Gilbert Berdine at the Mises Institute.
Sweden (blue dots) has served as a control group to compare policies intended to decrease deaths from covid-19. Sweden has been unfairly criticized for its policy despite having an outcome more favorable than places with authoritarian lockdown policies. Sweden did not close its schools. Other than stopping gatherings of more than fifty people, the Swedish government left decisions of closing businesses, using masks, and social distancing to the Swedish people. The government encouraged the use of masks and social distancing, but there were no requirements and there were no penalties for those who declined to follow the advice. Mortality attributed to covid-19 hit a peak value of 11.38 deaths per day per million population on April 8, 2020. This mortality was matched on April 15, and mortality has decreased since then. Daily mortality has been less than one death per day per million population for the previous eighteen days. Cases are very low. For all practical purposes, the covid-19 epidemic is over in Sweden. Almost certainly herd immunity has been achieved in Sweden irrespective of any antibody test results.
Unlike the Steven Petrow “manners” harangue we linked to above, this time Insanity Wrap encourages you to click over and read the whole thing.
Previously On Insanity Wrap: Obama’s Painful Endorsement, and Introducing Fraud-by-Mail
Fun with Photoshop
You'll laugh a lot when you see it. pic.twitter.com/7mhv1glMb3
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) August 19, 2020
We aren’t laughing at the condition of Bill Clinton, who looks like his vegan diet has robbed him of his will to live.
But somebody certainly had fun with the captioning…
And Now, a Brief Musical Interlude
“There’s something happening here” that the press won’t tell you about, but at our sister site, Red State, Brandon Morse is happy to show you in a most brutal fashion.
It’s called “The Honesty Remix,” and it truly is.
Well done, Brandon.
What’s at Stake in November
This seems by far the most significant piece of the day: What it means is that If Biden's elected, we're getting a mass (ie 11 million) illegal immigrant amnesty even if there's a GOP Senate that won't vote for it. Biden (or Kamala) will do it by executive "parole in place." https://t.co/mggCnu2NKB
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) August 18, 2020
Insanity Wrap needs to go off on a rant — mercifully brief, we promise.
The beauty of the American system as originally constituted in Philadelphia in 1787 is that it didn’t matter all that much who got elected president.
The president had very limited powers in a strictly limited government, and there was very little bureaucracy to order around.
Aside from the tiny Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Marshals, there weren’t any federal law enforcement agencies in the modern sense because Washington didn’t enjoy enough authority to bother having any.
Congress, too, enjoyed only limited powers and was “jealous” (to borrow James Madison’s word) of protecting those powers from executive encroachment.
But a century of increasingly so-called “progressive” governance has created an executive branch far bigger and more powerful than anything Madison or any of the other Founders would have long tolerated.
Congress during this time, rather than remain jealous of its powers, has been happy to cede its authority while at the same time creating huge new bureaucracies through which the president may enforce his will with little oversight.
We’ve gone from Madison’s vision of using “ambition to counter ambition,” to encouraging ambitious mediocrities like Joe Biden to wield virtually unchecked powers unimaginable just a few generations ago.
If Biden — this doddering virtual sockpuppet of the hardcore progressive left — wins, we might soon pine for the days of Obama bossing around the entire federal apparatus with his pen and his phone.
So vote like it matters. It isn’t supposed to matter much, but it does — all too much.
Thus endeth the rant.
One More Thing…
Men should consume no more than one alcoholic drink a day, according to a federal committee’s recommendations for new U.S. dietary guidelines https://t.co/azBw06DDdV
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 18, 2020
Insanity Wrap isn’t usually prone to paranoia, but we can’t help feeling that the Wall Street Journal is trolling us, personally.
Rather than give into paranoia, we’ll quote the late, great Ian Flemming:
“I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made.”
Insanity Wrap did create a new cocktail to sip while watching the Democratic National Convention this week.
Here’s the recipe:
Do try this at home.
But just the one, please.
That’s a Wrap for today.
Come back tomorrow for another Insanity Wrap…
…assuming we make it that long.
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