Monday, December 30, 2024
No Plausible Defense
My only point here is that Biden has been exactly like this for years. His incapacity has been obvious to anyone who paid attention.
The pretense that he suffered a precipitous decline in recent months may be absurd, but it is necessary. Without the myth of a late-term decline, the national press, the White House and Congressional Democrats would have no plausible defense to the charge that they sacrificed national security and well-being for partisan advantage.
We Need Industrial Scale Grifter Capture
This is the point--all this talk about addressing climate change is mainly an excuse to rip people off and line the pockets of those who are selling the panic.
No doubt there are millions of people who genuinely believe that CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere is a looming disaster, and while I disagree with them I understand their concern. But as a practical matter these people are being defrauded, sold a lie that all this "investment" will get them closer to "Net Zero."
Industrial scale carbon capture is the environmental equivalent of wearing cloth masks--it is symbolic but accomplishes nothing other than funding the cloth mask industry. For the rest of us it just makes our lives worse.
"Strategic Reserve"
This is all sheer fantasy, with one exception: the need for a “strategic reserve” of natural gas, although five percent is no doubt much too low. Why is that “strategic reserve” necessary? Because, no matter how much you spend, there will always be times—frequent times, in fact—when the wind doesn’t blow and the Sun doesn’t shine. So a reliable energy source will always be needed.
The financial numbers currently being bandied about in Great Britain are scarcely more realistic than the fantasy calculations upon which the “green revolution” was launched, years ago. The brutal reality is that no government can subsidize lousy sources of energy like wind and solar enough to make them viable.
If so much wealth were not being destroyed, it would be rather entertaining to see the entire “green” energy enterprise collapse before our eyes.
The Covid Coverup
That is what we used to call evidence. It certainly would be a smoking gun revelation, even to non-intel investigators, if politics were not involved. And yet this, along with Dr. Bannan's work in parallel, didn't just get discounted in this August 2021 presidential briefing but entirely suppressed.
Why? The obvious reason is that Biden didn't want to confront China over its role in creating the virus as well as refusing to cooperate in fighting it. To conclude that China manufactured the virus would prompt the US to cut off any more cooperation with China on medical research, a step that should have been taken well before the pandemic based on the deficiencies already known at WIV. Biden wanted to differentiate his administration from Trump's pugnacious China policies, perhaps in no small part because of Biden Inc interests that Hunter Biden had cultivated in the Obama administration.
Instead of dealing with the obvious, the Biden administration kept insisting on the zoonotic-transfer hypothesis despite a lack of any evidence for it. And then they worked with censorship groups funded in part by the State Department to punish anyone who dissented from that conclusion as "conspiracy theorists" and supposedly dangerous purveyors of "disinformation."
And it worked, too. It has taken three years to start getting the truth, and even then only because voters kicked Biden and Harris out of office. The incoming administration will get a chance to look at the records, and the current custodians know it.
Also, from John Hinderaker:
I am just a rank amateur, but to me it seems highly significant that after more than four years of diligent searching, no one has even found a bat (or any other animal) in the wild that was infected with COVID-19. So the “jump” from a wild bat to humans is entirely hypothetical and, as time goes by, less plausible.
If They Want the War to End, the Savages Can Surrender
Hamas started this war as the governing body of Gaza and with the support of the Gazans on October 7, 2023. They are now losing it, and badly. If they want an end to the war, they can capitulate and ask for terms. If they want a hostages-for-prisoners exchange, they can negotiate that as a separate issue. But after Hamas violated every one of their previous nine cease-fire agreements with Israel -- including the one in place on October 7 before Hamas massacred 1200 Israelis in a single day -- they have very little standing to demand "assurances" on anything from the Israelis.
And in about four weeks, that pressure will end when Trump takes office. He'd prefer to have this deal done before his inauguration so as to eliminate a distraction, but Trump may also be looking for an opportunity to remind the region of what an American "red line" should look like. Hamas is all alone now in providing An Example To Others, if you know what I mean, and Trump will likely waste little time in driving that point home.
Civilizational Breakdown
Heather’s long piece eloquently sets out the case against vigilante assassination, which I guess is a public service. But it is depressing that we have come to the point where we have to explain why murder is a bad thing.
Of course our education system is awful, but when a near-majority of young adults think that murder is A-OK as long as the “right” people are being killed, we are looking at something closer to civilizational breakdown. These people presumably had parents, who evidently taught them nothing. My guess is that a large majority of those who applaud Luigi did not attend Sunday School and do not now attend church or synagogue. Likewise, I’m pretty sure that very few of them were Boy Scouts, or participated in any other activity that might have helped to inculcate even the most rudimentary moral sense.
The Executiveless Branch
I don’t doubt that various people, including the press, conspired, but the fact that Joe Biden was senile was open and obvious. It was obvious even before he became president. He ran a basement campaign in 2020, while Donald Trump, who is nearly as old as Biden, toured the country putting on one massive rally after another. I assume everyone understood the reason for that contrast: Biden wasn’t up to running anything like a normal presidential campaign.
Biden’s disability was obvious throughout his presidency. He couldn’t talk without a teleprompter. On the rare occasions when he wasn’t reading a script, he quickly veered into incoherence or worse. Even with a teleprompter, he couldn’t be trusted. He would read instructions like “Pause” and “Repeat line.” An intelligent fifth-grader would have done better.
Biden fell down (or up) steps. He wandered aimlessly. He was officially on vacation half the time. The fact that his aides protected him from public exposure was obvious. And it’s not as though no one was talking about his evident incapacity. Power Line was one of many, many news sources that repeatedly commented on Biden’s dementia. And videos documenting his pitiful state were ubiquitous.
Vast numbers of people, including every salient Democrat and every relevant reporter, knew that Biden was dysfunctional—knew that he was not up to the standard of a normal adult, let alone a normal president.
What is striking to me is not the conspiracy to cover up his condition, which was hardly more successful than the alleged conspiracy to cover up the fact that smoking is bad for you.
What is striking is how few people on the Left—approximately zero—cared about the fact that we didn’t have a functioning president. Why were Democrats so unconcerned about having a president who was basically a cardboard cutout? Because they don’t really think the president is very important. They were content to have the Executive Branch run by nameless White House aides and by party grandees like Barack Obama. They thought, understandably, that the real power in government lies in the administrative agencies, and that those agencies would carry on perfectly well without a sentient being in the White House.
“Joe Biden” was just a name on the ballot, served up because, as of 2020, he had wide name recognition but not a far-left image. A perfect combination! And one that did not require him to do anything at all, once in office. A vote for Biden was simply a vote for things as they were: a government trending always to the left, with trillions of dollars being dispensed by a benign bureaucracy—the real power in America, the fourth branch that is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.
Make Our Culture Great Again
What can we make of these appalling findings? Presumably the 41% who say that cold-blooded murder is A-OK don’t go to church. So they rely for moral instruction on the public schools, which border on complete uselessness, and their parents, assuming they have parents. And on the popular culture, which can fairly be described as depraved.
What we are seeing here is a culture in steep decline. Donald Trump never set out to be a moral leader or exemplar, but maybe he can play a role in restoring sanity to our public discourse.
X Post of the Year
I’m not sure why these chestless fan femboys want to create an environment where violence resolves disputes because they are so personally unsuited to that medium. https://t.co/IXEAn4z4OL
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 5, 2024
Via David Strom.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Stone Age Parliament
Democracy: The Revenge
More important, 2024 marked a resurgence in democracy. The Democratic Party policies that voters rebelled against were profoundly undemocratic. Opening the southern border to admit 10 million or more illegal immigrants—when did Americans ever vote to do that? We didn’t. The Biden Administration exploded the national debt, driving up the cost of groceries by 20% or more. When did Americans vote for that? We didn’t. The Democrats’ top priority is DEI, which is to say, race and sex discrimination. When did Americans vote for that? We didn’t. To DEI the Democrats added trans-insanity, with genital mutilation of minors and men on women’s sports teams. When did Americans vote for that? We didn’t.
Far from representing an abandonment of democracy, the 2024 election was seen by most Americans as an opportunity to—finally!—assert democratic control over a government that was running rampant over their rights via executive and bureaucratic fiat. (Of course the icing on the cake, in terms of democracy, was that the Democrats nominated a candidate who had not gotten a single vote for the office of president.) Until the Democrats acknowledge that reality, they won’t be able to mount a comeback.
Healing
The ritual humiliation of Trump's implacable enemies is a wonder to behold, and as much as anything, a sign that the world is healing. There was no place left to go once the public rejected the "Trump is Hitler" attacks. What more could possibly be said? For a decade, the left has thrown every single accusation they could at Trump, impeached him, fueled riots, rigged elections, jailed his allies, and inspired assassination attempts, and none of it worked.
The Pravda media lost, and Trump won.
Hating Trump has been a good gig for these grifters. It paid well, required no thinking skills at all, and was a ticket to all the right parties.
But the grift is done. The world is healing.
Girl Math
Winning: Energy Edition
With his solid background in science and energy, he is going to be the most knowledgable secretary of energy the nation has ever had. The climatistas are going to cry hard on this one, but I can’t wait for his Senate confirmation hearings, which I expect Chris will deliver a tour de force to the likes of the egregious Sheldon Whitehouse.
Unlike some energy executives, Chris is not defensive about his industry one bit. Quite the opposite. His company issues an annual ESG report entitled “Bettering Human Lives” that makes the argument for why oil and gas make our environment better and the world safer. He turns every leftist cliche on its head and demolishes it.
So he's nothing like the current Secretary of Energy, that unqualified dunce, Jennifer Granholm, I guess.
Justice Dingbat
Can anyone who saw Harris getting questioned about her policies and track record imagine what a Senate confirmation hearing would look like? Why would any Democrat put their credibility on the line -- let alone the party's credibility -- to support the trainwreck that would result? Put aside that she failed the bar exam on her first try, which isn't exactly a measure of legal excellence associated with this level of appointment. Harris didn't even practice law for long, and not much when she did; she grossly exaggerated the number of cases she personally prosecuted, the record of which would come out during a confirmation process. What makes anyone think she'd be able to consider legal-philosophy questions and precedents in depth and under pressure?
Abomination
Thursday, October 31, 2024
War on Women
The Democrats are hoping to set a record for insulting voters.
It's a strategy sure to drive them into first place come next Tuesday. "Hey dummy! It's time to listen to your betters."
This time it's Kamala Harris' surrogate Mark Cuban, who keeps making the case for Harris by asserting that she has been lying to the voters and won't really do any of the anti-free market things she is promising.
Now he is telling us that Trump is afraid of strong and intelligent women, and implying that Trump-supporting women are weak and stupid for supporting him.
The odd thing is that they [sic] Democrats have been making a related pitch for weeks. They believe that any conservative woman who votes Republican does so because they are too weak to disagree with their husbands.
"Free yourself from the patriarchy, women! Vote for us and you can live in penury and kill babies!"
Harris surrogates have been pushing the message hard, apparently on the assumption that women shouldn't listen to their family, but seek permission from the transnational elite instead. No woman I know seeks permission from anyone to cast their ballot as they like.
The Garbage Vote
President Trump riffed on his trip on the garbage truck last night at his rally in Green Bay. He did so wearing the reflective vest he donned for the ride. He explains it all in the video below.
I love comedy. This guy is a natural. This five-minute clip is the funniest bit I’ve seen since I can’t remember when. I hope he prevails in the election next week, but if things don’t work out for him on November 5, he could easily do stand-up for a living. He’s got all the necessaries.
Fake
The photo is staged, but someone forgot to prepare the props. Harris is transparent, as they say. Harris is transparently fakin’ it. The paper is blank. The ear plugs are dangling free. The failure of preparation makes it difficult for the audience to suspend disbelief. As the song almost goes, now it’s just another show, don’t forget to cackle when you go.
Somewhere inside Kamala Harris' body is a real person. But we will never see it, judging from her public life.
Her events are stage-managed and rely heavily on others to carry the weight of keeping people engaged. Her speeches are robotically read from teleprompters because she is so nervous (or inebriated) that she can't speak extemporaneously without spewing a word salad filled with canned lines. Her TikTok video vignettes are so fake that they make you involuntarily cringe.
Now we learn, unsurprisingly, that even her books and Congressional testimony are cribbed from others smarter and more articulate than she is. That category includes anonymous Wikipedia editors who can string sentences together.
A Win For Civilization
DeSantis promised to hunt down the miscreants who left a pet to die, and he did just that, to the applause of Floridians. I don't know if the dog was chipped or wearing a license tag, but law enforcement found some way to track down the owners and take them into custody.
It may, to some, seem a small thing and beneath the attention of a governor facing multiple crises to have law enforcement track down the irresponsible owners of a pet, but I beg to differ.
It is about preserving civilization. We track down and shoot looters in a crisis not because we value THINGS above lives but because we need civilization in crises. When civilizations face crises, the civilized are those who put things back together. People descending into barbarians in times of crisis are even more dangerous than the uncivilized when things are going well.
Resilience depends on people being decent to each other. It is why we highlight stories of heroism and sacrifice especially when things are going off the rails.
Not everybody can be a hero, and that is all right. Heroes are heroes because they go above and beyond.
But everybody can and should be civilized, and DeSantis is reminding everybody that this is the minimum standard in our society.
The California Energy Model
California is the model for the country the Democrats want to build, and they aren't even shy about saying so. Liberal states often look to California for policy advice, including my home state of Minnesota, where Tim Walz is open about wanting to adopt California energy standards and automobile policies.
Climate change isn't the cause--it's the excuse to deindustrialize and always has been. Societal resilience is based on ever more reliable and abundant power, and reliable and abundant power are the very things that the left wants to eliminate.
It's not accidental. Expect more of the same in California and much more of the same in the United States if Kamala Harris wins.
We aren't powerless to stop this--yet. At least not in the free states. Trump has promised a full-court press to build our nuclear power infrastructure and stop the ridiculous subsidies for "renewable" power that simply can't meet our needs.
Wind and solar are niche. If I lived off the grid I would get a bunch of solar panels and batteries to store up power when the sun doesn't shine.
But that's not a strategy for a thriving economy; it's a way to live in a cabin, an RV or to power a home in a third-world country.
The Nuclear Revival
You can't blame these companies for going nuclear, and I am not at all bothered that they have. I love nuclear power. It is clean and even more renewable than solar or wind since the infrastructure lasts nearly forever and the fuel, if reprocessed, can last a very long time indeed. Solar and wind are unreliable, and the infrastructure has a very short lifespan. And nuclear plants don't get destroyed by a hailstorm or tornado.
I'm glad they are going nuclear. What I am pissed about is that the very people who are doing so have been wagging their fingers at us, trying (and too often succeeding) to get us to use unreliable power.
Reliable power for me, not for thee.
Wind is pretty stupid, but solar has some great applications for off-the-grid power generation. As a niche product, I think solar power is cool. As a way to generate power for the grid, it is ridiculous. The cost-per-kilowatt numbers are cooked like you wouldn't believe, so forget the phony stats. Wind and solar are expensive when you include all the costs, and they make the grid unstable.
Big tech companies understand these problems and only use solar and wind for show. They use reliable power for themselves, as do all the hypocrites who want to shove renewables at us. Even home solar systems use the grid as a backup because nobody wants to rely on the wind or the sun to keep the refrigerator going.
To the Big Tech companies, I say: have at it. Build all the nuclear you want. But for God's sake, quit lecturing the rest of us about "renewable" energy and send some of your expensive lobbyists to help convince regulators to start approving nuclear plants for everybody.
“Available 24/7” means dispatchable, like coal and natural gas, not weather-dependent like solar and wind.
We are about to witness a rapid resurgence in nuclear energy.
Tuesday, October 01, 2024
Doctrine
The message, in brief: The age of unilateral Israeli disarmament and concessions has come to an abrupt end. If Israel's enemies commit acts of war, they had better prepare for asymmetrical and overwhelming responses. Not only is that the only way to establish deterrence, it should be the doctrine for the entire West, rather than the mealy-mouthed appeasement tactics espoused by Kirby that only leads to perpetual conflict.
Monster
I believed then and still think now that Tim Walz is a monster. He knew what he was doing. And, contrary to what he claimed, the federal government warned the governors that this was dangerous. But he did it anyway.
If I were a cynic, I would think it was to save the state money by killing off an expensive demographic, but is anybody that sociopathic?
Tim Walz has never been held accountable for his manslaughter by depraved indifference. Soon, he may be one heartbeat away from the presidency.
Failing Upward
The United States has a big housing crunch, and one of the biggest reasons (there are many) is that Biden and Harris have let in 10 million+ illegal migrants and "refugees" over the past three years.
In other words, Harris, the Border Czar, caused the crisis to a great extent.
Now, she is promising to build three million homes during her term--a rather big boast.
So it's fair to ask: what is her record when it comes to initiatives she was put in charge of? You know, ones like connecting rural homes to high-speed internet and getting the border under control? How about building out half a million EV chargers?
You know the answer: none of these things happened. In fact, despite over $40 billion allocated for the rural internet initiative nearly three years ago, not a single home has been connected.
What Do You See?
In any case, take a close look at the chart the Post produced, and tell us what you see. A controversy has broken out about what it means, because if it is accurate, it shows that the earth is currently near its lowest temperature for the last 485 million years, until we stopped cooling and started warming recently. Is it a bad thing that we stopped cooling? You can find serious scientists who conclude that a modest warming is a net benefit to the planet (and the IPCC kinda sorta admits this in corners of its behemoth reports).
But the thermegaddonites point to the sharp reversal in the right tail (circled) to suggest that this fully man-made (it is assumed) recent warming is a catastrophe for which we must all give up our cars and start eating bugs. Yet you can also make out several other sharp reversals and warmings when there were no SUVs on the road.
Monday, September 30, 2024
Obsolete Product
Charging is somewhat cheaper if you use a slow charger rather than a “rapid” one, which itself, of course, is nowhere near as fast as filling your tank with gas. Slow chargers are OK if you don’t need to get where you are going, or if you think your time has no value. And the cost of the electricity needed to charge an EV will skyrocket if governments proceed with their plans to generate electricity primarily or exclusively from inefficient, intermittent wind and solar power.
Electric vehicles are an obsolete product whose time is always coming, but never arrives. An enormous amount of wealth is being wasted as we await the inevitable crash.
Really? What Kind?
It’s a classic instance of Kamala’s weirdly inappropriate laughter. But does she really own a firearm? (It would be delightful for some journalist to ask her to detail the manufacturer, caliber, barrel length and so on of her gun, but of course that won’t happen.) And is she really prepared to shoot an intruder?
Electric Downgrade
How do you heat houses without burning fossil fuels? The Greens’ answer is: heat pumps. They are pushing heat pumps as an all-electric solution, and the Biden/Harris administration has enacted major subsidies to try to entice homeowners off fossil fuels and onto heat pumps.
If you are not sure what a heat pump is, you are not alone. Neither am I. I am told that it is basically the same as an air conditioner, only in reverse. Heat pumps can, indeed, generate heat, but at what cost? Like all “green” measures, they are absurdly inefficient and therefore expensive. If you haven’t heard much about heat pumps yet, you should start paying attention. They are right up there with wind turbines in the Greens’ plan to downgrade your standard of living.
Also:
But all of this is battlespace preparation on the part of the Left. First they cajole; then they bribe; then they use naked force. Liberals have every intention of depriving you of the option of heating your home (or driving your car, or turning on your lights, or cooking your food, or mowing your lawn) with fossil fuels, the greatest contributors to human material well-being in all of history. Rather, you will be forced to use absurdly inefficient technologies like heat pumps, whether you like it or not, and no matter how much the cost degrades your standard of living.
She Looks Like a Psychopath
John drew attention to Mrs. Tim Walz’s performance of the the Harris campaign’s Turn the page theme over the weekend (video below). No disrespect intended, Mrs. Tim looks a tad demented, if not rabid. This makes for uncomfortable viewing.
Mind Your Own Damn Business
Give Walz some credit. At least he's not setting up a hotline for Harris supporters to start snitching on friends and family planning to vote for Donald Trump. Yet, anyway.
And say ... whatever happened to "mind your own damn business," anyway? Is accosting strangers in the grocery aisles and lecturing them on your politics another form of Walz' "neighborliness"?
Needless to say, this will not end well if these activists actually take Walz' advice, especially in grocery stores. That's where Americans feel the pain and failures of Bidenomics most acutely, and where they are already reminded of the need for a change from the status quo that produced it (in the produce aisle, even!).
Follow the Money
We shouldn't expect too much to come of this. The tiny climate warrior remains a darling of the international press and liberal globalists still trip over themselves seeking new ways to shower honors upon her. But this latest incident reminded me yet again of some of the questions surrounding Thunberg that never seem to be explored thoroughly or receive adequate answers. Among the biggest of these has to be precisely what it is that Ms. Thunberg does for a living. What is her "job" assuming she has one? After all, everyone needs a certain amount of money and resources to get by in this world.
I once again spent a little time today going through her brief biography. In terms of actual substance, it's a brief read indeed since she is only 21 years old. Her parents were a musician and an actor, so they probably weren't penniless, but she clearly wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth either. She has received honors and awards from many climate groups, but she doesn't seem to have ever taken a paying position with any of them. And it's not as if she's spent all of this time getting an advanced education. She only received her high school diploma last year at the age of twenty. She's constantly hopping around the globe for protests and awards, so it must be hard to hold down a professional gig of any sort.
We do know that many of the larger climate activist cult groups around the world have flooded cash and resources into activities that Greta Thunberg has endorsed and participated in, so that might explain her travel expenses and perhaps even lodging during protests. But has any of that money gone directly into Thunberg's own pockets? That's really not how charitable donations (for any cause) are supposed to operate unless the recipient is a paid member of the organization. In that case, records are supposed to be kept as to who was paid and how much they earned. A failure to do so can land you behind bars in some countries. Of course, that's only the case if anyone bothers to ask the questions and review the records. It's unclear if Greta has ever undergone that sort of scrutiny. Meanwhile, she continues to show up here, there, and everywhere while demonstrating no meaningful source of legitimate income. Don't the rest of us deserve some documented answers to these questions?
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Job Description
And let’s be clear, in this race, I’m the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations who traffic in guns, drugs and human beings. I’m the only person in this race who actually served a border state as attorney general to enforce our laws.
She knows Trump was president, right?
Fight
Harris expects to be elected on the basis of her identity and her "joy." And that's all she's prepared to engage on. What does that say about what kind of president she will make -- especially on foreign policy? If she won't fight for herself and her "values," why would anyone expect her to fight for America and its interests?
And that's it. That's the election in a nutshell. We have one candidate who won't fight, and another candidate whose first instincts are to run to a fight. It makes me wonder whether Harris and her campaign really plan to show up for the debate on September 10. If they do, they'd better find a fighting spirit, or it may turn out worse for Harris than the previous debate turned out for Joe Biden.
Zero
Our government, and a number of other Western governments, are committed to a goal of “net zero.” That is, our countries will add nothing further to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Any emissions of CO2 (e.g., breathing) will be balanced by absorption of CO2 by, e.g., plants. Various dates are specified in these aspirational statements, none of them realistic. And of course, the world’s main sources of atmospheric CO2 (China and India now account for most of the world’s CO2 emissions) have no intention of cutting their CO2 emissions, let alone cutting them to net zero.
But suppose we did it. Suppose we spent countless trillions, destroyed our electric grid and reduced our standard of living to a pre-industrial level. How much would an American “net zero” affect global temperatures?
Economic Illiterate
First, price controls (notably, price controls on groceries) have a long history, extending back 2,000 years. They always fail, without exception. If price controls worked, every country would have started using them centuries ago. As Milton Friedman demonstrated, and as virtually everyone now acknowledges, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. It is caused by governments; in this case, the Biden/Harris administration. Groceries have increased in price, like everything else, due to Bidenflation.Ed Morrissey:
Second, when it comes to prices, there is really only one instance of “gouging.” Companies compete for our business by offering the best products they can, at the best price (for them) that consumers will pay. Competition keeps prices down and quality up; no company can just “gouge.” If it charges too much, consumers will buy somewhere else, or something else.
The exception, of course, is when a company has a monopoly and there is no effective competition. This is why we have Section 2 of the Sherman Act. But there is one monopoly that never goes away, and isn’t subject to antitrust liability: government. At the state level, there is some degree of competition. Thus, if a state charges prices—taxes—that are too high, or offers products—government services—that are of low quality, some residents (but not all) can leave for better-run states. That is exactly what is happening now, as people flee blue states for red states.
But the federal government has no competition. It can engage in price gouging and provide lousy services, and, unless you are willing to move to Costa Rica or Switzerland, there is little you can do about it.
And the federal government’s price gouging includes more than taxes that are way too high. Because the federal government engages in deficit spending for political reasons—what a deal, to give some Americans money without having to tax other Americans to pay for it!—it borrows trillions of dollars, which causes inflation. So it is the federal government’s price gouging, not that of anyone in the food supply chain, that has driven recent increases in grocery prices.
Kamala Harris is one of the premier price gougers of our time.
Kamala Harris doesn't grasp economics well enough to even know its terminology. As Carlson points out, Harris went on obliviously after this error, on a theme her campaign wants to emphasize as its main economic message. It's not us - it's all the price gauging!
How incompetent does one have to be to not stop and correct one's self after misspeaking in this manner?
Grifters Without Borders
I, for one, am excited that in the midst of a U.S.-funded war with Russia, Ukraine has committed to spend $20 billion it doesn't have to green up its energy sector.
Will all that diesel fuel being expended to run tanks and transport trucks, the country really has to offset its carbon emissions.
What I don't yet know is whether Ukraine will close down farms, transition to insect protein, and build 15-minute cities to save planet Earth as Ukrainians get slaughtered on the battlefield.
Perhaps announcements regarding these other Gaia-friendly measures will come soon. Or, perhaps they can go all Soylent Green on us using battlefield casualties.
This is, of course, totally insane. Imagine how easy it would be to destroy an entire field of solar panels with a few artillery shells, not to mention the problem of having to build backup power plants to run when the wind doesn't blow, and the sun doesn't shine. Green energy projects ALWAYS require backup generating capacity, and given how vulnerable solar panels are in particular, it is inconceivable that the total cost of providing this energy [won't] be astronomical and wasted.
Ukraine can do this, though, in the midst of an existential war because they have the unlimited resources of the United States government behind them. There is no way that this wasn't instigated by Biden's people, nor could it be done without US funding.
No doubt a lot of money will be made by Biden allies as well, and of course, that is the real point of all this. It is laughable to think that Ukraine's greatest use of billions of dollars is reducing its carbon footprint, but as long as everybody says it with a straight face the aid keeps flowing, the profiteering continues, and taxpayers foot the bill.
Addition is Hard!
I already know what those on the left will say about this, assuming they say anything at all. They'll say there's no evidence that illegal immigrants commit more crime than Americans born here. Even if that were true, it doesn't change the fact that this particular migrant has raped two people in 20 months. And again, that's a minimum. For all we know he's attacked other homeless women but wasn't caught.
There is simply no reason this person should be in this country. He should have been deported after the first attack, regardless of whether or not the victim testified. Once he agreed to a plea deal, he should have been on a plane or bus back to Nicaragua. Why didn't that happen? Probably because New York City refused to cooperate with ICE and ensured this guy would remain on the street to commit another attack. I don't know that for certain but it has definitely happened before.
I've heard progressive morons from Juan Williams to Jerry Nadler make this argument over the years that the crime rate among illegal aliens is lower than among native-born Americans. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that's correct. So what? Some fraction of illegal aliens commit crimes (beyond entering the country illegally). All of the crimes committed by illegal aliens are in addition to the crimes committed by citizens and those here legally. We're not replacing one population with another, we get both, or all three if we separate out legal immigrants. Do leftists think the presence of millions of illegal aliens somehow decreases the total number of crimes committed compared to the number of crimes that would occur with just the native-born population. It's not about the crime rate among each population, it's about the crime sum. The only acceptable crime rate among illegal aliens is zero.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Nazi Savage Subtraction
So say the cowards who thought they could keep their skirts clean in Tehran from the blood they spill throughout the region. They need to talk tough now, especially for domestic consumption, because the Israelis just exposed the IRGC as incompetent at external security again. The IDF easily penetrated their defenses a few months ago in a strike on an anti-aircraft system near their nuclear-research facility in Isfahan. As the Times of Israel also adds, the Mossad has succeeded in assassinating several officials and experts tied to that nuclear program over the years, but it's not clear to what extent the Iranian people themselves are aware of Israel's success in that campaign.
There's no hiding Haniyeh's death, however. He had just arrived to congratulate the new president of Iran and attend the inauguration. The regime played up his visit, as well as those by other leaders of their terrorist armies, as evidence of their mastery of the region. Israel's assassination punctures that illusion, and more dangerously, exposes the IRGC as perhaps nothing more than well-funded thugs rather than geniuses of totalitarianism. And that could have serious repercussions for an unpopular regime with an already restive population.
Unfortunately, that may make it more likely that Iran will retaliate directly and escalate the war in the region. They tried it once already in a large-scale missile attack that the US, Israel, Jordan, and the UK entirely thwarted, which is what led to the strike on Isfahan. The Iranians quieted down after that demonstration of superior Israeli skill, and perhaps that may still be enough for Tehran to farm out the retaliation to one of its proxies.
Because the message in Tehran yesterday was clear to the Ayatollah Khomenei: You could be next. And as much as these terrorist leaders like to talk about the joys of martyrdom, they seem very reluctant to volunteer.
Case in point: one Ismail Haniyeh, the multi-billionaire who celebrated martyrdom in Gaza from his Doha mansion's green-screen in October.
Well, congratulations, Mr, Haniyeh. You've finally been volunteered for a duty you spent every effort to avoid for the last few decades. Consider that in the context of cowardly, too.
Sociopaths
Molly Jong-Fast knows that J.D. Vance is not agitating to create a racially pure America, but she doesn't want the viewers on MSNBC to know that; she wants them to associate him with the "Hitler" meme they have been pushing for years. And, by extension, she is playing on the mentally ill's propensity to aggrandize themselves and indulge in their sense of victimization through violence.
It really is that simple and disgusting.
These people are sociopaths--and yes, I mean that literally. Who but a sociopath would get in front of a national audience and actually say such a thing, and what kind of "journalist" could sit next to her as she says it and not get outraged?
POLITICO. MSNBC, which is a division of NBC News.
This, my friends, is who owns the information sphere. We need to destroy what last vestige of credibility they have. They are a menace.
Wait, Who's Weird?
How does anyone accuse Republicans of being "weird" or "strange" while promoting the administration that appointed Rachel Levine and Sam Brinton to significant posts? Or the candidate who made a point of appearing on "RuPaul's Drag Race" recently? The same candidate that endorsed an activist that argued that drag queens should have access to children for "Drag Queen Story Hour" events, and later accused of sexual assault?
The American electorate knows what "weird" is, and it's not a VP candidate that asserts the need to strengthen the traditional-family model, even if one doesn't necessarily agree with the specifics of the policy proposal. Put J.D. Vance against Shangela, Brinton, and Levine, and then ask voters which of these are "weird." The answer won't be Vance.
Talentless Hack
Finally, there's more to this than just demonstrating how deep in the bag the "Paper of Record" is for Democrats. If we can't hold politicians accountable for past positions -- including positions they've never actually committed to changing in any public forum -- then what should we discuss? Excluding policy from election debates means nothing more than an endless series of character attacks, which the Times purports to disdain.
If Harris can't handle criticism over her radical agenda from just five years ago, then perhaps the problem isn't "weaponization" at all. It might just be that Democrats short-circuited actual democracy to anoint a talentless hack as their party nominee, and that the New York Times damned well knows it.
That Clears It Up
Reporter: Will you work with the GOP on the border issue?
— The Investigative Examiners (@TruthorConseq12) July 27, 2024
Harris: (I'm still trying to figure out this response!) pic.twitter.com/YUfcThaOb9
Via John Hinderaker.
ActSus
Is ActBlue engaged in money laundering? Almost certainly, yes. Is it washing foreign donations? I have no idea. How could we know?
During the 2012 campaign, the Obama campaign was accused of using similar techniques to launder money because its donation platform didn't use verification to determine the location of a donor, allowing foreigners to donate to his campaign. There's really no easy way to check where the money is coming from because the process is designed to make fraud easy.
Do we have irrefutable proof that ActBlue is artificially flooding money into the Harris campaign? Not yet.
But I bet we will find it, either before or after the campaign. If you or someone you know suspects that ActBlue may have used your name to launder money, go to the FEC website and look up your name.
Totally Normal
I agree that what is happening now is not normal, but which way is it not normal?
Is it not abnormal for a person to serve as U.S. Senator for 36 years, then to go on to be Vice President for 8 years, and still have time left to serve as President, and even to run for reelection as President when he is 81, and then to drop the nomination after excluding competitors and winning it in the primaries, handing the nomination to a person who never won any votes in any bid for the presidency? Is it not abnormal for a President to oversee the criminal prosecution of his predecessor, his rival, and then, after dropping out, to seek to rearrange the Supreme Court to enhance the likelihood that his rival will suffer real criminal punishment?
The Kamala Reset
So Kamala Harris enthusiastically recommended to her followers that they contribute money to the Minnesota Freedom Fund in order to bail out murderers, rioters, rapists, arsonists and other criminals. We don’t know how much money her donation page raised for MFF, but we do know that she contributed, probably significantly, to a $43 million windfall for that left-wing organization. Harris’s actions show that she is pro-crime, and pro-criminal.
Understandably, the Democrats now want to erase that part of her record. The WCCO smear of Trump shows how far they are willing to go in that regard. But it is likely a losing battle: Harris has a broader pro-crime history, as exemplified by her support for maintaining San Francisco as a sanctuary city—a policy that had tragic, fatal consequences. When it comes to her record, Kamala Harris can run, but she can’t hide.
Beta Males for Harris
The Harris campaign is estrogen-filled, with AWFLs, pronoun-pushers, and lots of DEI and accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Everything is about social media influencers, style, RuPaul's Drag Race, and appearances on Ellen and Drew Barrymore.
So I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the beta males are coming out in full force for Harris--pushing their bona fides as antiracist feminists whose goal in life is to apologize for the sin of being born White and male. It is so on-brand it is a Babylon Bee parody brought to life.
Pick a Lane
I don't think Trump is backing out of anything. I am quite confident, in fact, that he would be happy to debate Biden again.
And that is what he agreed to. It is Biden who backed out of the debate, and Harris wanted to debate J.D. Vance, remember?
I think both debates should happen as agreed or proposed. It is only fair.
Doesn't the Harris team agree that Joe Biden is fully capable of being President of the United States, and Joe Biden himself claimed in his withdrawal address that he believes he would have made a great president for the next four years. Biden and Harris are a team, the team agreed to the stipulated conditions, and the debates should go forward as planned.
Why not? What's the excuse?
Of course, Harris will say she is an entirely different candidate with an entirely different campaign, which is fair enough.
But then Harris and her toadies should drop any pretense that Trump agreed to debate her. He didn't. He agreed to debate Biden, and that is entirely different.
As with everything coming out these days from the mainstream media and the Harris campaign, this, too, is a complete farce and hoax. If Harris is different from Biden, then Harris should negotiate with the Trump campaign as any candidate would do. If she isn't, then she should say that she is running for Joe Biden's second term and debate the policies, the mistakes, and Biden's mental capacities on those grounds.
It's either/or in my book. Harris is Biden II, the younger version [of] the person who pulled out of Afghanistan, or she is Kamala Harris, the brat Gen Z hero. Pick a lane.
Savage Trash
Yes, you can burn a flag, you barbarian savages, but you cannot steal one to burn.
Well...in the world of Kamala Harris and her progressive friends, I guess you can.
You can storm any building, spray paint any monument, and terrorize anyone anywhere.
Energy Portfolio
Who knows how much governments around the world have spent to promote “renewable” or “green” energy in the quest for “net-zero” emissions, but it has to be several trillion by now. And yet the world’s share of energy from fossil fuels is little changed from 1970. Here’s the breakdown from the 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy, just out the last few weeks. And what you can readily see is that coal, natural gas, and oil still account for 81 percent of the world’s energy. Nuclear and hydro (which greens still hate) account for another 10 percent, and “other renewables” (mostly wind and solar, but some biomass and geothermal) is still only about 8 percent.
She's An Ally...Of Hamas
So Harris’s first official act as the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee will be to side with Hamas against one of America’s most important allies. Because that is the position of the party whose nomination she seeks. It would be less dishonorable if, like Joe Biden, she simply dropped out of sight.
