The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Joe Biden Lies About the Economy

Posted on | October 22, 2022 | 1 Comment

Of course, the headline could have been simplified — “Joe Biden Lies” — because every word out of his mouth is false, no matter the topic, but his lies Friday at Delaware State University were about the economy specifically. The official topic, “Remarks by President Biden on Student Loan Forgiveness,” as the White House web site phrases it, was just a pretext for Biden to engage in electioneering ahead of the midterms. But while we’re on the subject of “Student Loan Forgiveness,” let me remind you that in August, I explained (“Biden’s Illegal Boondoggle Giveaway”) that the President of the United States does not have the authority to order the cancellation of student loan debt, and that the Biden administration is falsely claiming such authority under the 2003 HEROES Act, a measure intended to provide assistance to military personnel deployed overseas during the War on Terror.

Biden himself admitted he doesn’t have this authority, and was against student loan “forgiveness” during the 2020 campaign (when it was part of Bernie Sanders’ socialist agenda), so why did he pivot suddenly in 2022 to claim this authority, which he does not actually have?

One word: Politics. Democrats who couldn’t muster enough votes in Congress to pass student loan “forgiveness” legislation were looking ahead to the midterm election campaign and, desirous of energizing “the youth vote,” seized upon the notion of having Biden cancel student debt by executive order, with the HEROES Act as pretext. Last month, six states sued the administration, arguing that the president acted unconstitutionally, and Friday an appeals court granted an injunction to halt the “forgiveness” program while the case is appealed to the Supreme Court (where, God willing, it will be permanently voided).

Anyway, that’s the background on Biden’s trip to Delaware State University which is, not coincidentally, in the category of HBCU (Historically Black College or University), allowing Biden to kill two political birds with one stone, (a) energizing the youth vote and (b) energizing the black vote, because why pander to just one Democratic Party constituency at a time, eh? Of course, the bill for this pandering — the $400 billion that Biden’s “forgiveness” is expected to cost — will be sent to the taxpayers, who are expected to be happy about going to work every day and paying taxes to fund a benefit for other people’s lazy kids who took out a bunch of student loans they don’t want to repay.

Here’s an obvious question: If your Mama and Daddy don’t want to help you repay your student loans, why should anyone else want to do it? Like, if one of my kids got into a desperate financial situation, I’m sure my wife and I would find some way to help them, and I expect most other parents would do the same, because we love our kids, right? So who are these college kids whose parents don’t love them? And why are the rest of us — going to work and paying our taxes — expected to pick up the tab for the irresponsible financial decisions of these unloved kids?

As obvious as these questions are, nobody in the national media ever asks Joe Biden or other Democrats to answer them. Student loan “forgiveness” simply doesn’t make sense, from a logical or moral perspective, but because it is a policy favored by one party, the fundamental deficiency of the policy is ignored by Democratic Operatives With Bylines.

So there is Biden at Delaware State, pandering to his party’s constituents, telling them to go to the government “Free Money” website where they can apply for his student loan forgiveness program (which he knows damned well the Supreme Court is going to strike down). And after he gets done promoting his unconstitutional giveaway, Biden then switches to an attack on Republicans and starts talking about deficits:

I will never apologize for helping working- and middle-class Americans as they recover from the pandemic, especially not to the same Republicans officials who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthy Americans and the biggest corporations that wasn’t paid for and racked up our deficit.
I don’t want to hear it from MAGA Republicans — officials who had hundreds of thousands of dollars of debts, even millions of dollars in pandemic relief loans forgiven who now are attacking — attack me for helping working-class and middle-class Americans. . . .

(What, exactly, is he talking about here? Democrats voted for “pandemic relief” the same as Republicans did, and exactly how is it that opposition to an unconstitutional taxpayer-funded boondoggle is an attack on “working- and middle-class Americans”? But the real Big Lie here is the claim that the “$2 trillion tax cut” only benefited wealthy corporations, because I’m sure as heck not a wealthy big corporation, and I got a nice refund check, thank you very much, President Trump. I could write a few thousand words about the mythology behind Democratic rhetoric against “tax cuts for the rich,” but this is just parenthetical snark, so I’ll save that essay for some other occasion.)

But despite what Republican officials say, we can afford student relief. That’s because the first two years of my administration — that’s because of the historic deficit reduction, the very deficit reduction the Republicans voted against.
This morning, my administration announced that this year the deficit fell — the federal deficit fell by one trillion four hundred billion dollars just this year. The largest one-year drop in all of American history: one trillion four hundred billion.
And it follows last year’s historic drop on the deficit of $350 billion.
And we’re going to reduce the deficit by another $250 billion over the next decade. And the reason for that is because of what — Medicare is going to be able to negotiate drug prices and lower the costs.
We pay the highest drug prices of any nation in the world for the same drug. You can buy the same exact drug in a drugstore here in Dover or Wilmington, and if you go over to Paris, France, or anywhere in Europe, it can be as much as 40 percent to 60 percent less. Same exact drug.
So, folks, I don’t want to hear any weeping and gnashing of teeth from pharma — the big companies.
Folks, in just 20 months since I’ve been in office, we cut the deficit in half.

What word shall I use to describe this? Bullshit will do.

Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute has a few more words than that in a column at the New York Post explaining the shell game that Biden is playing with “deficit reduction.” When the pandemic hit in early 2020, Congress voted for hundreds of billions of dollars in “pandemic relief” which, of course, was not spent all at once, but instead involved funding for programs that continued into 2021. These programs expired in 2022 — the emergency had ended, and the funding ended with it — and Biden is falsely claiming credit for this as something he did to reduce the deficit. In fact, Biden and Democrats in Congress increased deficit spending for years to come, so that the truth is the exact opposite of what Biden said.

So now I’ve written 1,200 words explaining what most of you already knew — Biden is lying, as always — and most days I just let it slide by me, but this particular steaming pile of bollocks, delivered at Delaware State University, was aired live Friday on Fox News. At the time, I was busy with my day job and couldn’t take time to write anything about it, but I made a note to get back to it on Saturday morning, so that tonight I can discuss it with my friends John Hoge and Dianna Deeley on The Other Podcast, which airs live at 7 p.m. ET. Tune in, OK?




 

Category: Economics, Joe Biden

SOROS-FUNDED PHILLY D.A. BLAMES G.O.P. ‘RACISM’ FOR IMPEACHMENT

Posted on | October 22, 2022 | 2 Comments

Before we get to the latest news from Pennsylvania, I’d like to begin by congratulating Dana Pico for his success in spotlighting the dangerous lunacy of District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has turned loose so many criminals that “Killadelphia” has well and truly earned its infamy. There are more dangerous cities in America — St. Louis, for example — but none of them are as big as Philadelphia, America’s fourth-largest city, so that when the homicide rate goes up there (and it’s increased 78% since Krasner took office), it’s kind of difficult to ignore the death toll. Of course, the national media have tried to ignore the violence in “Killadelphia,” but Dana kept hammering away and now the floodgates have opened, so that Krasner felt compelled to hold a press conference Friday on the steps of the state capitol where he says Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature is getting ready to impeach him:

The Pennsylvania House committee looking to impeach Democratic Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner canceled a hearing with the city’s top prosecutor after he requested a public forum.
Krasner still showed up at the state Capitol on Friday morning, condemning the select committee’s investigation and telling reporters that he expects the Republican-controlled chamber will start the impeachment process as early as next week. . . .
Krasner said the committee has no legal grounds for impeachment. Instead, he accused the committee of targeting him for his ideas and policies during a “super-heated election cycle” and attempting to blame large and diverse cities as being “lawless.”
“What we see here is the same old playbook, which is about coded and racist messaging,” Krasner said. “It’s about blaming the biggest city in Pennsylvania with the most diverse population for having the same national struggle that we have with gun violence everywhere.”

Well, the city may be “diverse,” but there is a decidedly monochromatic aspect to the daily bloodshed in “Killadelphia,” where more than 80% of the murders are black criminals shooting black victims. There were an all-time record 562 murders in Philadelphia last year, which means that roughly 450 black people were killed, but according to Krasner, the Republicans who want to end the city’s bloodbath are “racist.”

Whereas the Democrat D.A. who keeps letting criminals out of jail, well, he’s anti-racist, you see. Such is the contorted logic of Larry Krasner’s “social justice” agenda. The results have been disastrous.

Republicans are blasting Pennsylvania’s Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman because a man — exonerated of a murder conviction and released from prison through Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), which Fetterman supports — was allegedly involved in another murder in September.
On Thursday, Fox 29 Philadelphia reported that Jahmir Harris, 32, who was released from prison last year, is wanted for his alleged role in the murder of 50-year-old Charles Gossett in September.
“Prosecutors say Harris was identified by security footage as the driver of a vehicle that two gunman exited before shooting 50-year-old Charles Gossett in the back of the head around 2 a.m.,” Fox 29’s Steve Keeley and Kelly Rule reported. . . .
Harris was convicted of the December 2012 murder of Louis Porter, who was shot in the head in front of his own five-year-old son. He was sentenced to life without parole in 2015 but was exonerated and released through Krasner’s CIU last year, which Fetterman lauded earlier this week . . .

Do you think maybe this “exoneration” was a mistake? Like, maybe Harris actually did commit the murder for which a jury convicted him?

Nor is the case of Jahmir Harris an isolated incident. Over and over again, the criminals charged with murder in Philadelphia turn out to have been let loose in accordance with Krasner’s “social justice” agenda.

Say hello to Yaaseen Bivins, 21, who was convicted in August “of plowing his car into a pregnant woman and killing her unborn baby while drag racing,” but set free on bail while awaiting sentencing. Then in September, according to police, Bivins “shot five teens outside Roxborough High School.” One of the teenagers died: “Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said the teen who was killed — Nicolas Elizalde, 14, of Havertown, Delaware County — appeared to be ‘a totally innocent victim,’ fatally struck in the chest during the hail of gunfire.”

Krasner’s reaction? “Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation.” Oh, as if you needed hindsight to realize that turning loose violent criminals is a dangerous idea.

But if you call attention to such horrible incidents, and think that the anti-police/pro-criminal District Attorney should be held accountable for the results of his policy, that means you must be a “racist” Republican!




 

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 10.21.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | October 22, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Progressive Gets Mugged by Reality
EBL: Republican Candidates in Arizona Heading Into The Election, Lola, RIP, and Homunculus Horror
Twitchy: “Imagine Being This Broken”, also, Need Further Confirmation That This Administration Is Driven By Twitter?
Louder With Crowder: James Corden lashes out, claims it’s beneath him to care about how he treated workers, also, Watch and enjoy how this pizza bro and kosher Jew demonstrate how the real world gets along off of Twitter
Vox Popoli: Newsmax is Promethean, also, More Adventures in Bafflegarble
According To Hoyt: Kindle A Light For The Lost, also, Keeping the Faith
Monster Hunter Nation: An Illustrated Guide to AI Prompt Mastery, also, WriterDojo S3 E15: Working With an Editor with Toni Weisskopf
Stoic Observations: The Rabbit, Chapter 1

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: An American Rwanda, Courtesy Of The Left, also, Has Michigan Forgotten 2020?
American Greatness: Criminal Cartels Have More Control of Our Border Than Biden Does, Arizona Governor Defies Biden Demand to Remove Shipping Containers from Southern Border, and Federal Court Orders Depositions of Top Biden Officials–Including Fauci, Psaki, and Murthy–in State AGs’ Case
American Thinker: Unvaccinated Single Women Say ‘No’ To Vaccinated Single Men
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Trump VP Friday
Babalu Blog: Cubans boldly protest in front of police station in Holguín, Los Angeles set to elect a mayor who was part of a Cuban communist propaganda and intel operation, Thanks mostly to Canada, Cuba expects a ‘robust’ tourist season, and Correspondent for Catholic EWTN Network, arrested, fined, & threatened by Cuban dictatorship
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for October 21
Behind The Black: Frozen lava flows around Martian hills, Chandrayaan-3 now scheduled for summer 2023, Ukraine officials in direct negotiations with Musk about Starlink, and Teachers fired and blacklisted for opposing the queer agenda in childcare and elementary schools
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: This Election Pivot is a Tad Early
Don Surber: 2022 brings seismic changes, also, War tourism
First Street Journal:  Journolism: media bias at its finest, also, Journolism: ignoring the “Five Ws + H” in reporting due to political correctness
Gates Of Vienna: Migrant Storm on the Balkan Route, Illiteracy ’R’ Us, The Silent War Against the Germans, and Eric Zemmour: The Government No Longer Has Any Legitimacy
The Geller Report: Texas Sues Google for Allegedly Collecting Biometric Data of MILLIONS of People Without Their Consent
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, A Ground-Based View of a GRB, There May Be A Long Line Forming For This, and How to Peacefully Handle Protestors
Hollywood In Toto: Clooney, Roberts Punch Pleasing Ticket to Paradise, also, Dangerous Game Director: Jon Voight Is the Consummate Professional
The Lid: How Did Iran Become A Radical Islamist State? Thank Jimmy Carter
Legal Insurrection: Appeals Court Puts Temporary Hold On Biden’s $400+ Billion Student Loan Forgiveness Giveaway, Success of Republican Allan Fung is Forcing Democrats to Spend Money in Rhode Island, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statements Destroying Higher Education, and College and University Enrollment Drops Third Year in a Row
Nebraska Energy Observer: England Expects
Outkick: San José State Postpones Football Game After Freshman RB Tragically Dies In Scooter Accident, Jon Gruden’s Lawsuit Against The NFL Over His Leaked Emails Appears To Have The League Scrambling And Stressed, People Are Not Happy Al Michaels Stated A Fact About Taylor Swift, ESPN Fantasy Says Kyler Murray, Who Was On The Field For Thursday Night Football, Is On Bye This Week, and Drake Jackson Calls Christian McCaffrey ‘Little White Boy’ In Reaction To 49ers Trade
Power Line: Red Tide In a Blue State, Thoughts from the ammo line, and Beyond Soft on Crime
Protein Wisdom Reborn: The Age Of Boutique Authoritarianism
Shark Tank: Broward County Elections Supervisor Shuts Down Reporter For Asking About Illegal Voter’s Arrest
Shot In The Dark: Sixteen Years, also, Security
The Political Hat: Pure Distilled Scum
This Ain’t Hell: Tom Brady Likens Football Season to Military Deployment; Then Walks it Back, Valor Friday, Final Defendant Gets Two Years in Fake Military Clothing Scheme, and Political divide driven by “stupid, ignorant, feelings based” rural voter
Transterrestrial Musings: Critical Race Theory, also, “We Are No Longer Conservatives”
Victory Girls: AOC Represents Twitter, Not Her District
Volokh Conspiracy: Ninth Circuit Partly Affirms and Partly Reverses Judgment for Planned Parenthood Over Secret Recordings
Watts Up With That: Is Private Renewable Energy Investment Faltering in Australia?, also, Battery Airplanes? Nope!
Weasel Zippers: Nearly 80% Of Voters Oppose Castration & Mutilation Of Minors, Biden Claims “Mega MAGA Trickle-Down” Will Tank The Economy If GOP Wins Midterms, Fetterman: Murderers In Prison For Life Are “Like Your Grandfather”, and Poll: Only 31% Agree Biden Is Giving Attention To Most Important Issues Facing Americans
The Federalist: The DOJ Is Hiding Information About Biden’s Attempts To Interfere In U.S. Elections, Race-Obsessed ‘Diversity’ Ploys Distract The Salvation Army From Actually Helping People, Abortion Harms Fathers Too, and Virginia Teacher Reveals The Left’s Next Public School Quest
Mark Steyn: Next Week’s Prime Minister, also, Live Around the Planet: Friday October 21st


HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS
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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 10.21.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | October 21, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.21.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: Biden’s Energy Depression Is Nigh
357 Magnum: Florida Man & Son
EBL: Can Lee Zeldin win in New York State?, also, Alone
Twitchy: “Think Of Them As Being Permanently Suspended”, also, Alrighty, Uncle Fester!
Louder With Crowder: Legend stands outside building with a lint roller to illustrate how conditioned Americans are to comply, also, Hero rottweiler saves old lady by fighting off a kangaroo for forty-five minutes
Vox Popoli: What The Actual, Literally Retarded, She Lived Up to Her Name, and Deep State UK’s Auto-Coup

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Muslim Parents Lead The Way, also, ‘Diversity Is Our Strength,’ They Lied
American Greatness: Gen X to Democrats – Eat My Shorts!, also, State AGs Investigate Big Banks for Involvement in U.N. Carbon Emissions Pledge
American Power: Yorba Linda Public School District Bans Critical Race Theory. Cal State Fullerton Retaliates by Pulling Teacher-Trainees from the District’s Educational Programs
American Thinker: Trump Embarrasses the ‘Elites’, also, Activist Generals Are Transforming the Air Force Academy
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Citizen’s Arrest News
Babalu Blog: Bernie Sanders messes with Texas Latina congressional candidate, gets destroyed, Cuban dictatorship uses gay marriage to cover its crimes against humanity, and Cuba’s Foreign Minister lambasts U.S. after his government pockets $2 million in hurricane aid
BattleSwarm: A Perfect Storm Of Transportation Disaster?
Behind The Black: SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites, NASA approves use of American spacesuits for spacewalks after investigation, and Nurses fired and blacklisted for either being white or Christian
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: I Eagerly Await the Flagging of Moderna’s CEO by Twitter & YouTube for calling COVID the Flu, also, The unholy partnership between Democrats and Corporations is a direct threat to our constitutional republic
Don Surber: Democrats’ Kari Lake mistake, also, NYT: “Red October is here”
First Street Journal: Hold them accountable!
Gates Of Vienna: Vax Skeptics Must Be Beaten Until They Repent, Knife Jihad in Ludwigshafen, Raped, Tortured, and Murdered by a Culture-Enricher, and Decline and Fall
The Geller Report: Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight Declares War on Democrats in Oregon, Kari Lake Thrashes Media, Brings the Receipts When Confronted on ‘Election Denial’, and RINO Former RNC Chief Michael Steele Calls MAGA Republicans ‘Lice,’ ‘Fleas’ and ‘Blood-Sucking Ticks’
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, JWST Looks At The Pillars of Creation, and Some Notes on Inflation
Hollywood In Toto: Critic Confessions: What Too Many Film Critics (Including Me) Forget, Adam Carolla & Dr. Drew Reveal Exactly Why We Mistrust Mainstream Media, and The Retaliators Upends the Death Wish Tradition (For a While)
The Lid: Constituents Mock Occasional Cortex – Chant ‘AOC Has Got To Go’
Legal Insurrection: Doctor Who Issued Letter Clearing Fetterman’s Health is Major Democrat Donor, California Bureaucrats Finally Approve Desalination Plant, British Prime Minister Liz Truss Resigns After Six Weeks in Office, and Pennsylvania? It Could be Nevada That Flips the Senate and Give Republicans Control
Nebraska Energy Observer: Ok; bear with me
Outkick: Tom Brady Apologizes For Ridiculously Comparing Playing In The NFL To Military Deployment, Another Absurdly Cringe Russell Wilson Subway Video Surfaces, Jason Kelce Reacts To Tom Brady Yelling At His O-Line: ‘I’ll Put You In That Trash Can’, Yankees Set Embarrassing Playoff Record During Game 1 ALCS Loss To Astros, and Shakira Gets Revenge By Putting Her Logo On Ex’s Barcelona Uniform
Power Line: The Dirty 51 revisited, Fact-checking Esme Murphy: With Jon Justice, and Breaking: Trussed
Shark Tank: Rick Scott Questions Energy Department Concerning Innovative Technology Going To Red China
Shot In The Dark: Whiffle, All The DFL’s Fault, and Connected
The Political Hat: Dictates Of Academia – Diversity Statement Required; Critical Race Theory Defended; BLM Protest Suggested
This Ain’t Hell: Fake Navy SEAL Scams Victims Out of $1.5 Million, A Hooters manager stops kids from selling chocolate bars, violence occurs, and Short takes – IRS, SF Toilet, El Paso and illegals, Stamp price hike, Foreigners hiring US Officers, New anti-gun group
Transterrestrial Musings: Space Solar Power, also, Condolences
Victory Girls: Tina Kotek Is The Original Defund The Police Candidate
Volokh Conspiracy: “When I Die and Go to Hell, I Want to See the Entire [Court of Appeal] Panel There to Greet Me!”
Watts Up With That: British PM Wins Pyrrhic Victory on Fracking, also, Biden to drain more oil from SPR… Expects oil industry refill it for $68-72/bbl
Weasel Zippers: Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) Admits Democrats “Knew” Inflation Would Result From Their Big Spending, Kamala Harris Hires Third Chief Speechwriter Since Taking Office, Florida Democrat For Gov Charlie Crist Calls Biden “This Great President”, and Tina Kotek Lies When Pressed On Her Email That Called The 2020 Riots “Peaceful Protests”
The Federalist: Destroying America’s Energy Advantage To ‘Save Democracy’, Evan McMullin Is A Democrat And A Fraud, New Mexico Democrat Gabe Vasquez Deletes Tweets Slamming Oil To Masquerade As Moderate, and Democrats Are Already Telling Americans To Expect Delayed Election Results This Fall
Mark Steyn: Tip of the Evil Iceberg

HALLOWEEN DEALS
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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 10.20.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | October 21, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.20.22 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1875
A Bad American: Drag Brunch? (NSFW)
357 Magnum:  State’s Attorney’s Office for Cook County and Chicago in Shambles
EBL: Durham Loses Again: Mission Accomplished, also, Georgia Senate Update: Walker and Warnock Tied
Twitchy: Waukesha Massacre Perp – “I’m Not A Person, I’m A Human Being”, also, HuffPo Declares Rapper Big Mike More Dangerous Than Ye
Louder With Crowder: Kari Lake needs only her 20-year-old volunteer to illustrate how horrible the media is at their jobs, Author finds driving electric vehicle across state ‘very difficult,’ it took him 15 HOURS to go 178 miles, and Independent voters now view DEMOCRATS as more of a ‘threat to democracy’ than the GOP
Vox Popoli: Yes, And?, When Dialectic Exceeds Rhetoric, Hollywood is Never an Option, and How Did THAT Ever Happen
Gab News: Stop Killing Christians

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: War and Regrets in Ukraine, also, The Racial Masochism Of The Left
American Greatness: Who Denies Election Results?, Why the Left Hates Conservatism, and Stacey Abrams Suggests that the Cure For Economic Woes Is More Abortions
American Power: Vote for Peace, not Perpetual War, on Election Day, also, Voters Overwhelmingly believe American Democracy is Under Threat, But No One Wants to Lift a Finger to Save It
American Thinker: What Happens When Democrats Lose Bigly?,  also, End of the Line for #BLM?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Biden admin announces $2 million in hurricane aid to communist Cuba, While Cubans starve, the country’s fat Prime Minister and its fake “First Lady” enjoy food festival, and It’s getting nasty in TX-34
BattleSwarm: Three Republican House Candidates to Consider Backing, also, The War Against Wokeness In Round Rock ISD
Behind The Black: SpaceX simplifies smallsat rideshare program, effectively slashing prices, October 19, 2022 Quick space links, and Moderna CEO admits to past lies: “COVID is simply the flu, harmless to the healthy.”
Cafe Hayek: Evidence That Time Makes Demand More Elastic, also, More on Some Difficult Questions of Trade Policy
CDR Salamander: What Does Sending a Firm Signal to Red China Look Like?
Chicago Boyz: Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, Et Cetera
Da Tech Guy: Jezebel and the Democrats, also, A Reminder If/When the Rolling Blackouts Come to Massachusetts, and other New England States
Don Surber: 538’s con, also, Coal state taking down BlackRock
First Street Journal: Some people would rather be less safe than cooperate with and support the police, also, The Democrats are running on everything except what matters
Gates Of Vienna: A Call for the Blue Mosque to Become Gay-Friendly, Let ’Em In!, “Since it Doesn’t Prevent Contagion, What Was the Vax For?”, and German Nursing Homes Will Be Packed With Refugees
The Geller Report: Interesting Prediction: Ex-Dem Tulsi Gabbard Will Be Trump’s VP, also, Biden To Release at Least 10 Million More Barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve In In Order To Fool Mid-Term Voters
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, As A Language Evolves, and NEOWISE Scans The Whole Sky
Hollywood In Toto: Friday the 13th Part III – Jason Gets His Iconic Hockey Mask, Netflix Rejects Woke, Stages Stunning Comeback, and Black Adam Recycles Superior Superhero Beats
The Lid: Is China Fast Tracking A Taiwan Takeover, Or Reacting To Biden Gaffes?, also, As COVID Hit, Some Fed Officials “Coincidently” Traded Involved Stocks
Legal Insurrection: Has The Democrat Dam Holding Back The Red Wave Finally Broken?, Biden Claims Dipping Into Oil Reserve Isn’t Politically Motivated, Penn State Rethinking Construction of New ‘Racial Justice Center’ Due to Budget Deficit, and “Experts” Now Warning about ‘Severe Flu Season’ and ‘Very Contagious’ Rhinovirus
Michelle Malkin: Fists of Furry
Nebraska Energy Observer: Closer, also, The Theology of American Foreign Policy
Outkick: Washington Commanders Sent A $14,000 Bounced Check To A 50/50 Raffle Winner, Mississippi State Player Sam Westmoreland Dead At 18, Nick Saban Comments On Video Showing Alabama Player Allegedly Striking Female Tennessee Fan, and ESPN Analyst, Who Said Josh Allen Deserves To Fail Because Of Dogs And American Flag, Says Lamar Jackson Criticism Must Be ‘Careful’
Power Line: A Star Is Born, Stacey Abrams explains, and Dems Hitting the Panic Button
Shark Tank: 2016 Election Denier & J6 Committee Member Stephanie Murphy Warns Of 2020 GOP Election Deniers Running For Office
Shot In The Dark: Self-Destruction, also, Dirty Harry Meets Batman
The Political Hat: Maoist Struggle Sessions Come To Reddit, also, Aktion T4 Comes To Australia…And Beyond
This Ain’t Hell: FEMA scandals post-Maria, Heritage Foundation assigns its weakest rating for U.S. Military strength,  Investigation Finds Black Airman Faked Racist Tweets, and The pussification of the Army drill sergeant
Transterrestrial Musings: Kari Lake, also, Addressing Putin’s Nuclear Threat
Victory Girls: Florida Senate Debate Sees Democrat Strategy, also, A Look At New York’s ‘Adams Tent City’ Migrant Shelter
Volokh Conspiracy: Ohio Supremes Indefinitely Suspend Judge Pinkey Suzanne Carr from Judicial Office and Law Practice
Watts Up With That: Green Energy Fail: New England Facing Rolling Blackouts this Winter, Cost Of Public Charging an EV Is Now More Expensive Than Filling Up with Diesel, and Attenborough Laments Demise of 800 Penguins “Because Climate Change”, But…
Weasel Zippers: Kamala Harris: Biden Admin’s “Real Intentionality” Is To “Re-Shift Industries” On Energy, Cosmetic Company Ulta Video Features Two Biological Men To Explain “Girlhood” To Women, Fetterman Compares January 6th To 9/11, and Activists Erupt At Occasional Cortex, Call Her A Coward
The Federalist: Lawsuit Offers SCOTUS A Chance To Smack Down Biden’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Student Loan Bailout, RNC Sues Pennsylvania For Telling Counties To Break Election Law, Amazon Spoiled Rings Of Power By Trading Tolkien For Lame Hollywood Tropes, Biden Shamelessly Depletes Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve To Buy Midterm Votes For Democrats, and Hyperventilating About Kanye Can’t Hide The Left’s Antisemitism Double Standard
Mark Steyn: Why Can’t These Jim Crow Fascists Be More Civil?, also, A Globalist Coup

MASS QUANTITIES OF HALLOWEEN CANDY
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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 10.20.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | October 20, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.20.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It’s a blast.

If I had any brains, I would be taking a long nap right now, but since I have three days of posting to catch up on…Huge thanks to my little brother (I have all the education in the family, but he makes all the $$$) and Stacy for helping me out this week when my finances got f’d up in Vegas; thanks to them, I didn’t have to sleep in my car Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum:  Sanctuary Is Great As Long As Northern Cities Don’t Have to Deal With the Issues
EBL: Double Threat
Twitchy: “Shut The Hell Up”, also, “Off The Charts Cringe”
Louder With Crowder: LOL: Fancy restaurant bans ‘tiny cretin of a man’ James Corden for life over being an entitled douche, also, Whoa: Former Democrat presidential candidate endorses Kari Lake for governor, will campaign with her
Vox Popoli: Excellence + Time = Greatness, Avoid Like the Plague, Chinese Flee Ukraine, and Meme of the Week

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Our Mercenary Retired Generals, also, Trans Propaganda, Blue And Red
American Greatness: Biden Regime Told El Paso Mayor to Not Declare State of Emergency Over City’s Migrant Crisis Ahead of Midterms, also, BlackRock Stock Downgraded Over Investments in ESG
American Power: Russia Nationalizes ExxonMobil’s Holdings in Sakhalin-2 Oil and Gas Project at Sakhalin Island, Russia, also, Kari Lake Pushes Back Hard on Leftist ‘Election Denier’ Smear
American Thinker: What You Need to Know About Fentanyl, also, Lee Zeldin and the Empire State Exodus: Is Sane Government Still Possible in New York?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Sardine Tin News
Babalu Blog: Another building collapse in Havana takes the life of a 5-year-old girl, Anti-government protests in Cuba continued Monday night, and Surprise! Cuban dictatorship sacks ministers in charge of energy, appoints new ones
BattleSwarm: Semiconductors: China Is Fucked
Behind The Black: Gemini/Apollo astronaut Jim McDivitt passes away at 93, Both the Pentagon and Europe are looking for ways to fund Starlink for the Ukraine, and Today’s blacklisted American: Students demand professor be fired for stating a fact
Cafe Hayek: Rue Britannia
CDR Salamander: The Baltic Nations are Subject Matter Experts Here, we Should Listen
Chicago Boyz: Worthwhile Reading & Viewing
Da Tech Guy:  The Tell on Democrats/Media/Tech and Stolen Elections, Report from Louisiana: 2023 Gubernatorial Election Early Outlook, and Five Patriots Thoughts Under the Fedora
Don Surber: Democrat coalition melting, 10 governorships that could flip red, and What they mean by democracy
First Street Journal: Credentialed media are finally starting to see the problems with plug-in electric vehicles, also, If you’re scared, say you’re scared!
Gates Of Vienna: Let Them Wear Sweaters, France: Culture-Enriching Child Murder in the Furtherance of Organ Trafficking, and The Greens Embrace Bans on Speaking
The Geller Report: MASS PROTESTS ACROSS EUROPE Against Food, Energy Prices, EU Green Edicts, Ukraine War, also, French General: People who resisted COVID jabs are ‘superheroes’ who ‘embody the best of humanity’
Hogewash: Don’t Get Cocky, But…, The Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Dear George Clooney: Hollywood Is Coarsening Our Discourse, also, What Issa Rae Misses About Ezra Miller’s MeToo Pass
The Lid: They’re Ba-a-a-a-ck: COVID Public Health Emergency Programs
Legal Insurrection: Alaska’s Bering Sea Snow Crab Season Canceled, Conservative Students at University of Iowa Complain of Repeated Harassment, America’s Next Supply Chain Crisis, and The Democratic Coalition Attempt to Smear GOP Rep. Dave Schweikert Backfires
Nebraska Energy Observer: What’s in a Name
Outkick: Chargers Kicker Proudly Shares Pro-Jesus Message After Beating The Broncos, Even Mike Francesca Is Calling Out Bob Costas, Tennesee Fan Tears ACL Celebrating Vols Win Over Bama – ‘I’ve Been Waiting On That Win For 15 Years’, and Bubba Wallace Suspended One Race For Pushing Kyle Larson
Power Line: The Daily Chart: Bidenflation, Biden Wrestles Teleprompter, Loses, and Dear Esme Murphy: Fact-check this [updated]
Shark Tank: Rubio Brutally Smacks Down Demings’ Voter Suppression Accusation During Debate
Shot In The Dark: That’s Saar, Folks, also, But Why Is Keith Ellison Running All Those Ads Portraying Him As Tougher On Crime Than Dirty Harry? 
The Political Hat: Public Schools: Where Public Masturbation Is Considered Normal
This Ain’t Hell: USAR Maj make porn to fuel his congressional campaign, also, List of 195 veterans running for Congress this year
Transterrestrial Musings: In Which Scott Dworkin Is An idiot (Again), also, Crushing The Gig Economy
Victory Girls: Eric Swalwell Airs Despicable Abortion Ad, also, Tim Ryan Race-Baiting JD Vance Backfires
Volokh Conspiracy: Tiananmen Square: An enduring symbol of the Chinese Communist Party’s illegitimacy
Watts Up With That: Why The Woke Create the Disasters They Warn Of, also, They Can’t Make Green Energy Using Only Green Energy
Weasel Zippers: PayPal’s Plan To Fine Users For “Misinformation” Tied To Chinese Contractor, This Is What Happens When Democrats Run A City For Too Long, Pelosi Officially Loses Her Marbles, and Trainwreck: Biden Says He “Pushed Hard” For Right “To Marry Couples In The Privacy Of Their Bedroom”
The Federalist: Va. Democrat Plotting To Take Kids From Parents Who Won’t Trans Them Just Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud, We Need The ‘Protect Children’s Innocence’ Bill, Here’s The Truth About Criminals Pouring Over The Southern Border That CNN Is Trying To Hide, and Leftist Dark Money Group Advises Volunteers On How To Target Voters In ‘Deeply Racist South’
Mark Steyn: Autumn Leaves, Hunt’s Red October, and Case Closed

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Category: Linkagery

What Radicalized Ace of Spades? (And Notes on the History of ‘Browderism’)

Posted on | October 19, 2022 | Comments Off on What Radicalized Ace of Spades? (And Notes on the History of ‘Browderism’)

We were in the car today and my brother Kirby was ranting about Putin and the war in Ukraine, but my mind was a million miles away, as I scrolled through an item at Ace of Spades HQ. Kirby kept ranting, and after a while, I interjected my thoughts, which involved the earliest dawn of the Cold War — Earl Browder and the “Duclos Letter.”

Students of the erstwhile Soviet Union (including our good friend Dianna Deeley) will immediately recognize this. During World War II, the West was more or less compelled into an alliance with Stalin, in order to defeat Hitler. Winston Churchill was always clear-eyed about the nature of this alliance — he was never deluded about Communism’s long-term menace — and it was he who described the new reality in March 1946:

“A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. . . . From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.”

This new reality had become apparent, to those who knew where to look for the clues, even before World War II ended. The American Communist Party (CPUSA) was, from the moment of its founding, an instrument of Soviet policy, answerable to its masters in Moscow through the mechanism of the Comintern. During World War II, when Stalin sought help from the West, CPUSA became an enthusiastic booster of Franklin Roosevelt and sought to portray Communism as wholly compatible with American democratic ideals. In a speech to the CPUSA’s national committee in January 1944, the party’s General Secretary Earl Browder proclaimed: “Capitalism and Socialism have begun to find their way to peaceful coexistence and collaboration in the same world.” Browder, who had been the CPUSA’s presidential candidate in 1936 and 1940, renamed the party as “Communist Political Association,” endorsed FDR’s reelection in 1944, and purged critics who disagreed with this stance.

A few months after FDR was reelected, however, there came a clear signal that “peaceful coexistence and collaboration” were not the postwar path being charted by Stalin. This signal took the form of an article in the April 1945 issue of the French Communist Party journal Cahiers du Communisme, which appeared under the byline of Jacques Duclos, a senior official of the French party who had also been a leading Comintern operative. The crucial paragraph of the so-called “Duclos letter” was this:

In truth, nothing justifies the dissolution of the American Communist Party, in our opinion. Browder’s analysis of capitalism in the United States is not distinguished by a judicious application of Marxism-Leninism. The predictions regarding a sort of disappearance of class contradictions in the US correspond in no wise to a Marxist-Leninist understanding of the situation.

Duclos did not write this article. Rather, it was written in Moscow and issued through the French party journal as a way of communicating Moscow’s repudiation of “Browderisim,” a deviation from party doctrine. Browder was booted from CPUSA leadership, replaced by William Z. Foster, and this episode in 1945 — before World War II ended — marked the true beginning of what became known as the Cold War.

This episode is crucial to understanding what happened in the postwar era. Leftists (including such CPUSA alumni as Howard Zinn) would blame the United States for the Cold War, but the “Duclos letter” and the repudiation of “Browderism” make clear that it was Stalin who dictated the anti-American party line taken by the Soviets and their Communist allies after WWII, a direction determined in Moscow before the war had even ended. Documenting the Russian origin of the “Duclos letter” in their 1998 book The Soviet World of American Communism, authors Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Kyrill M. Anderson write:

Why did the Soviets publish this article secretly in Moscow [in January 1945] and then send it to Paris for open publication as an ostensibly French essay? Perhaps they feared that publication in a Soviet source would be too blatant a signal that Stalin was preparing for a confrontation with the West. By arranging for French Communists to deliver the rejection of Browder’s policy of Soviet-American cooperation, the Soviets may have hoped to avoid alerting American leaders prematurely to the anticipated change in Soviet policy.

Exactly — the signal from Moscow was clear enough to American Communist leaders, and the subsequent replacement of Browder with Foster as CPUSA general secretary made it even clearer to any who had missed the signal transmitted by the “Duclos letter.” The era of Soviet-American cooperation had been merely a short-term tactical alliance, necessary to defeating Hitler and by early 1945, with Nazi Germany clearly on the brink of collapse, that era was over. Yet Stalin was canny enough to realize that he couldn’t announce this policy shift openly until he had secured the conquest of Eastern Europe which was described so famously in Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain speech.”

As I was recounting this to Kirby, it occurred to me that the history of the “Duclos letter” was actually quite relevant to the post I had been reading at Ace of Spades. Opening with a shot at the latest idiotic utterance from Stacey Abrams, Ace then swerves his rhetorical steamroller over onto the sidewalk to flatten National Review‘s Dan McLaughlin:

NeverTrump has long lied about not knowing that the Democrat Party had radicalized into socialist, anti-human totalitarians, because that, of course, is the only way to justify their frequent alliance with them and their sabotage of the Republican Party. They have to continue to pretend it’s 2003 and the most radical Democrat in Congress is corrupt Harry Reid — people “we can do business with.”
Either they’re lying, or they’re willfully blind to the fast pace of radicalization the left has gone through since 2008, or they’re just, as I say, forever frozen in The Last Year When Everything Made Sense of 2003, or they’re just fucking terminally stupid.
Or maybe NeverTrump never notices the radicalization of their Very Good Friends on the Left because they’re busy aggressively monitoring the truly dangerous radicalizing forces… on the right. Gotta “patrol the right.” Gotta purge ’em for anyone coloring outside the permitted neocon lines.
It doesn’t matter which — NeverTrump has forfeited any claim of leadership. They are stupid blunderers and fools at best, and nasty liars and traitors at worst.

Perhaps the link between this and the “Duclos letter” is obvious enough, but I’ll belabor the point in case you missed it: Like Earl Browder in 1945, the NeverTrump crowd has failed to realize that times have changed, and that there is no future use for the politics of the past. As Ace says, there was a time — and indeed, 2003 was about the peak of that rally-’round-the-flag moment of Patriotic Unity — when it seemed that Republicans might find some reasonable basis for bipartisan cooperation with the kind of Democrats “we can do business with.” But to turn this analogy to “Browderism” the other way around, the NeverTrumpers are more like the naÏve American liberals who, seduced by the “Popular Front” wartime rhetoric of Browder-era Communists, imagined that the Reds weren’t really so bad, an illusion that evaporated with the rise of the “Iron Curtain” in Europe, and postwar revelations about Communist espionage, the Rosenberg case and the unmasking of Alger Hiss.

Turn the TV channel and watch CNN or MSNBC for a while, and you see that from the liberal perspective, the problem in our current politics is that Republicans have become “far-right extremists.” But speaking for myself, and the Republican voters of my direct acquaintance, we are no further right than we were 25 years ago. The real problem — what has actually changed in the past two decades — is that the Democrats have become left-wing “extremists.” This is why Republicans can no longer play the “bipartisan” game, as if Democrats were still the party of Tom Harkin, Max Baucus and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Really, why do you think Hillary Clinton lost in 2016? Because she had to rig the party machinery to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the Democrat nomination, and lots of the Sanders voters either stayed home on Election Day or else voted for Trump out of pure spite. The idea that an avowed socialist like Sanders very nearly won the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2016, and put a helluva scare into the establishment before the Democrat powers that be orchestrated Biden’s nomination, tells you all you need to know about which party has been taken over by fringe “extremists.” The fact that the alleged “moderate” Biden has been pursuing such a radical left-wing agenda confirms the fact that, although Bernie didn’t win the nomination, it’s his “progressive” wing of the party that’s really calling the shots now.

The question in the headline — “What Radicalized Ace of Spades?” — is not merely rhetorical. If you went back to 2005 or 2006, Ace was a regular ol’ post-9/11 conservative, who had fun making sport of liberal silliness, and certainly didn’t spend much time criticizing neocons, RINOS and other treacherous GOP sellouts. He was a mild-mannered Ewok with a mischievous sense of humor, but the past 15 years have been a serious of battles that have hardened him. Well do I recall how Ace stood tough during the Charles Johnson/LGF Meltdown of 2009, and he fought fiercely during the Weinergate War of 2011, which was followed in 2012 by the Brett Kimberlin Crisis. Being in a few combats like that will teach you who your real friends are, and how many of those Professional Conservative™ types even noticed when Kimberlin came after Ace?

The elite class of Professional Conservatives™ are not much help when the going gets tough, and the defection of the NeverTrumpers from 2015 onward was therefore not really surprising to those of us (obviously including Ace) who had been paying attention to the modus operandi of Conservatism, Inc. Whatever the faults of Donald Trump, his ascent certainly helped clarify who could be trusted as a Team Player during an existential crisis for the Right. Because that’s what we were facing in 2016. If Hillary Clinton had won “Obama’s Third Term” — if the Democratic Party’s hold on the White House had been extended to 12 years, or maybe even 16 years — where would the GOP be now? And it is my belief that none of the other Republicans who sought the 2016 nomination — not Ted Cruz, not Marco Rubio, certainly not Jeb Bush — could have beaten Hillary. The GOP needed something different from its predictable Chamber of Commerce-approved brand of “conservatism” to beat Hillary, and Trump provided that crucial difference.

Times change, and circumstances change, and you can’t expect to keep winning by mindless repetition of the political formulas of the past.

How many more presidential elections were we supposed to let the Republican Party lose before they finally got the Travis Tritt message that The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ Anymore? But the stubborn fools of NeverTrump didn’t want to sober up and hear that message, to let go of their commitment to Principles of Civility long enough to win an election.

That’s the damned thing about politics. It doesn’t matter how splendid your policy ideas may be, if you can’t win an election, and the GOP Establishment has been 0-for-3 since 2004. John McCain lost in 2008, Mitt Romney lost in 2012, and every possible alternative to Trump lost in the 2016 Republican primaries. Whose fault was that?

NeverTrump lost and, incapable of accepting responsibility for their defeat, instead declared war on the millions of Americans who elected the man who had beaten them. They endorse the liberal claim that the Republican Party has somehow been taken over by a dangerous cabal “extremists,” but in fact Trump expanded the Republican Party coalition — adding nearly 15 million more voters than John McCain got in 2008. How does a party become more “extreme” by adding voters?

They have no answers to these objections. They’re firmly committed to the idea of Making 2003 Great Again — a nostalgia for “bipartisanship” (and endlessly invading Middle Eastern countries). NeverTrump chose to become irrelevant (they’re just waterboys for the Democrats now) and I try my best to ignore them, a task made easier by my knowledge that Ace of Spades will keep mashing ’em flat with his rhetorical steamroller. He owns them. They’re his bitches now, and he’ll keep slapping them around on a regular basis, whenever it suits his fancy. God knows, they deserve it.




 

Category: Republicans

Denial Is Not a Strategy

Posted on | October 19, 2022 | Comments Off on Denial Is Not a Strategy

“I dismiss that,” Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday on MSNBC, when Andrea Mitchell asked about polls showing “rising inflation concerns along with crime, giving . . . new momentum to Republicans”:

PELOSI: First of all, let me say that I think much of what you have said I don’t agree with. That is to say, the New York Times poll, I think, is an outlier poll. You cited one poll.
ANDREA MITCHELL: It’s the RealClearPolitics average showing similar issues.
NANCY PELOSI: But that was one that brought down the average — it was an outlier. It wasn’t that big a sample. So I dismiss that.
I have been — since Congress adjourned, I have been in an average of five states a week. And I can tell you that women’s concerns about their freedom are very, very much still very significant in terms of how they will vote.
In fact, 80% of people who care about a woman’s right to choose say they will vote — it will determine who they vote for. . . .
I track these campaigns very carefully. I believe that we will have the mobilization on the ground to turn out the vote, the clear message we want to give women freedom of choice. [Republicans] want to have a ban on abortion.
We want to support and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, etc. They want to use a debt ceiling to cut that.
We want to — we have lowered the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. They want to reverse that.
We want to save the planet for our children and the future. [Republicans] say that [climate change] is a hoax and that’s the argument they used on the floor to oppose the Inflation Reduction Act, which made historic gains for fighting the climate.

She’s attacking the validity of a New York Times poll, arguing about sample size, and pretending that her anecdotal information — women who turn out at the Democratic campaign events she’s attended — is more useful in predicting what issues will motivate swing voters in the midterms. By the way, does anyone else remember that Pelosi’s last tenure as Speaker of the House only lasted four years, until the next midterm election in 2010, which produced a Republican landslide? There followed another eight years of Republican control, until 2018, but now, four years later . . . Well, good-bye, Nancy. Enjoy retirement with your “clear message” and “historic gains for fighting the climate.”




 

Category: Congress, Election, Nancy Pelosi, Polls
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