Memorial Day

Sen. Tom Cotton: "Memorial Day honors courage, sacrifice of greatest champions of liberty in history."

Let's hear it for the 14th amendment, too

Federalist: "Federal Court Strikes Down Race-Based Restaurant Bailouts In Biden’s COVID-19 Spending Bill."

This rule is so obviously a violation of the equal protection clause that I can't believe the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals split 2-1 on the decision.  But then I never thought a Supreme Court justice could come to the conclusion a baker could be forced to decorate a cake.

Freedom of speech, baby

This is a really excellent article: "Answers to 12 Bad Anti-Free Speech Arguments: Featuring That XKCD Cartoon Everyone Likes to Quote!"  

A confederacy of bootlickers

American Greatness: "Fawning Media Gets a Big Scoop on Biden’s Favorite Ice-Cream" - "When given a rare opportunity to question Joe Biden on any number of critical issues facing the nation—the crisis at the southern border, inflation, the Wuhan lab leak, skyrocketing gas prices, and rising crime rates, to name a few—the fawning corporate media on Thursday opted to grill him about his choice of ice cream instead."

It's funny because it's believable - Babylon Bee: "Reporters Cheer As Biden Takes Huge Bite Out Of Microphone Mistaking It For Ice Cream."  

It's inflation

PJ Media: "A Terrifying Omen For America Under Biden Becomes Even Worse."  

The narrative rules at the NY Times

Volokh Conspiracy: "Another Example of Why the New York Times is Not a Trustworthy Source" - "The Times doesn't even pay attention to its own reporting when it doesn't suit the narrative, in this case that until this month, recent antisemitic violence was largely a Trump-related phenomenon." 

Assemble the social workers

NY Post: "Atlanta councilman Antonio Brown, who voted to defund police, has car stolen."

Irony can be pretty ironic.

Alternate viewpoint

Red State: "Fox News' The Five Just Announced a Major, Permanent Departure"

It's Juan Williams who - I'll admit - I like.  While I disagree with him on most issues, he stands in the arena and defends his position. 

North to Alaska!

Reason: "A 135-Year-Old Maritime Law Is Stopping Cruise Ships From Returning to Alaska" - "President Biden signed a bill Monday that temporarily waives the regulation. Why not just repeal the law?"

Short version: Maritime law requires cruise ships to make at least one stop in a foreign country.  So if you take a cruise to Alaska, you're either going to depart from Vancouver or make a stop in Victoria.  But Canada was closing their ports due to covid and Congress passed a regulation waiver double-quick to get those cruise ships running again (both House and Senate passed on a voice vote).

Facts and "facts"

Matt Taibbi: "Fact-Checking" Takes Another Beating."  Concerning the origin of Covid:

The consensus was so strong that some well-known voices saw social media accounts suspended or closed for speculating about Covid-19 having a “lab origin.” One of those was University of Hong Kong virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who went on Tucker Carlson’s show last September 15th to say “[Covid-19] is a man-made virus created in the lab.” After that appearance, PolitiFact — Poynter’s PolitiFact — gave the statement its dreaded “Pants on Fire” rating.

Taibbi gives a defense of fact-checkers but also correctly notes they bent the truth if it meant giving Trump an ounce of credit. 

Running out of other people's money

American Institute for Economic Research: "The War on Retirement"

Ironically, this war on retirement began with Social Security in 1935. Rather than establishing a forced savings program wherein people would save money during their working years and have that money returned to them during retirement, the government established a Ponzi scheme wherein later participants paid off earlier participants. As with all Ponzi schemes, the program was sustainable only if there were more people paying into the system than were receiving benefits from it. By the early 1980s, too few people were paying in, and Congress fired its first salvo at retirees by making previously tax-free retirement benefits taxable. This tweak in the rules breathed new life into the Ponzi scheme, and Social Security reserves once again grew. But the scheme faltered again in 2010 and since then, Social Security has been paying out more than it brings in. Current estimates have the trust fund becoming insolvent by 2035.

To keep this bloated program afloat, Congress will eventually be forced to fire yet another salvo when it either raises workers’ taxes or reduces retirees’ benefits. And with each passing year this albatross around workers’ necks will become heavier.

The only way the Social Security Ponzi scheme could keep on running was if Americans keep pumping out kids to become workers paying into the system.  Yet birth rates have been steady declining for the last six years leading to this moment: "U.S. Birthrate Fell By 4% In 2020, Hitting Another Record Low."  

Social Security contains the seeds of its own demise.  In the aforementioned year of 2035, per current law, once the Trust Fund is depleted, benefits will be automatically cut by 25% since the program can only pay out benefits equal to income.  For a program that already has a negative rate of investment return (unless you live over 90), this benefit cut will really expose the house of cards.

It's a riot they can't figure this out

A laugh riot, of course.  Twitchy: "Authors of NY Times op-ed get some help diagnosing reasons for ‘rapid decline’ in BLM support last year." 

I'm really curious what accounts for the Democrats' (still) positive opinion of BLM.  Here's a group that has pulled in millions of dollars in contributions and the only investment they've made is real estate in Topanga Hils, California.  

"Learn to code" - Mushhead Joe

Babylon Bee: "Laid-Off American Construction Workers Dress Up As Russians In Hopes Of Getting Job On New Russian Pipeline."  

Nothingburgers for dinner again

The Week: "The enormous downside of another long, public Trump investigation that comes to nothing."

At present, it's not clear Trump himself will ever be prosecuted. Tuesday's news is zero guarantee he'll be charged, tried, convicted, or imprisoned. To my mind, with the information currently available to the public, telling the American people to expect Trump's prosecution is telling them to engage in fantasy.

Memeorandum hit count tonight: "Trump" 16, "Biden" 8. 

There he goes, plagiarizing again

Twitchy: "Joe Biden delivered the same line to Coast Guard grads as Ronald Reagan" 

Ronald Reagan, 77, versus Joe Biden, 78. pic.twitter.com/tDs1l1ke6d

— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) May 19, 2021

Today we're [spins wheel] wearing masks

Daily Beast: "Biden’s CDC Chief Keeps Changing Her Story—And Confusing Everyone."

We're in the very best of hands. 

NY AG tries to save CNN

Hot Air: "NY AG declares "criminal investigation" of Trump Organization."

We fervently await the minor tax infraction that will result in a fine.  Well, CNN does.

Extra - Red State: "Wake me when it's over."  

In Nancy Pelosi's America

Law Enforcement Today: "Walgreens has closed 17 stores in Nancy Pelosi’s police-defunded San Francisco due to ‘out of control’ shoplifting."

The San Francisco Chronicle story is behind a pay wall but there's this detail:

In fact, a shoplifting incident occurred right in front of San Francisco Chronicle writer Phil Matier, as he was working on a story about “rampant shoplifting” and Walgreens closures.

Matier reported:

“No sooner had the clerk spoken than a man wearing a virus mask walked in, emptied two shelves of snacks into a bag, then headed back for the door.

“As he walked past the checkout line, a customer called out, ‘Sure you don’t want a drink with that?’”

Somebody had the munchies.

Crackpot adjacent here in Gilead

Margaret Sullivan, the media correspondent for the Washington Post, wrote (or implied) that "the United States is on track to become functionally an authoritarian White Christian nationalist state in the very near future."  Charles C.W. Cooke was not amused: "Bravo, Washington Post, You’re Now Spreading the Beliefs of Crackpots."

This is sheer lunacy. It is gibberish. It is the sign of a diseased mind. And it matters, because it is being shared by Margaret Sullivan, who is not some random from Twitter, but the former public editor of the New York Times and the current media columnist for the Washington Post. That Sullivan considers these words to be worth spreading around is an indictment of her judgment and of her conception of the world around her.

In a similar vein, I keep reading stories and hearing drivel on NPR about how America is "drifting away from democracy" because Georgia asked voters to provide a social security number before receiving a mail-in ballot.  

These journalism clowns can't bear to think that they're merely pencil scribblers so they need to invent these scenarios where they're the brave frontline fighters against Christians and fascists.

Highly related - Kurt Schlichter: "The Media Hates You And Is Shocked That You Hate It Back."  Get bent, hacks.  

They can't quit Trump

Newsbusters: "America Declines, Media Obsess Over GOP Squabbles."

Sometimes I head over to Memeorandum which describes itself as: "an auto-generated summary of the stories that US political commentators are discussing online right now."  So I guess you can't blame the site for bias since it appears to be run by some algorithm.  When I'm there, I do a word search on "Trump" and one on "Biden."

I don't think there's been a single day that there are more "Biden" mentions than "Trump."  Even this morning, five months after Inauguration Day, there are 11 Trump mentions to 8 for Biden.  

It's a bizarre obsession for a guy who isn't tweeting and really not doing much newsworthy.  The media wanted him gone and please come back.

Ain't so tough without your Twitter, are you Sandy?

I realize that Congress is supposed to this place of tradition and decorum, but this Washington Post story warms my heart.  (Safe Hot Air link here).

Two Washington Post reporters witnessed Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene (Ga.), who shouted “Hey Alexandria” twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them “terrorist” groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her “radical socialist” beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia. “You don’t care about the American people,” Greene shouted. “Why do you support terrorists and antifa?”

AOC scurried away from Greene without a word of retort and then her spokesperson said the matter would be referred to the House's Sergeant at Arms.

So, AOC, who never tires of calling people racist on Twitter, fascists on Instagram, and unAmerican on Twitch streams (I assume) doesn't want to confront that very real threat IRL.  LOL.

The hypocritical icing on the cake is that the "Defund the Police" girl ran to the coppers for protection.  Because their speech is violence but our violence is speech.

No comment

The Corner: "Democrats Finally Find Something They Don’t Want to Blame on Putin."  

Otherwise, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln

I meant to link this one yesterday.  Twitchy: "RCP’s Tom Bevan highlights how far the media (WaPo in this case) will go to ‘soften the blow of bad news for Biden’."

In short, the Washington Post said the highest rise in inflation since 2008 isn't so bad if you ignore food and gasoline.  Ya know, stuff people need to survive.  

Let's just remove a couple of key drivers of inflation so the number doesn't look as bad, shall we?

This kind of stuff drives me crazy. Media going out of its way to soften blow of bad news for Biden, when for 4 years they would, on a daily basis, do the opposite for Trump. pic.twitter.com/AErfpTt0fo

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) May 12, 2021

Compliant press will comply some more

Federalist: "Biden White House Edits Administration Quotes Before Letting Reporters Publish Them."

Gaslighting for Silver Alert Joe

Hot Air: "NY Times gets ratioed after claiming there are 'no long lines' for gasoline."

Ace: "Gas Shortage Hits East Coast as Biden Administration and His Media Praetorian Chant "There Is No Gas Shortage"."

Fox News: "Colonial Pipeline gas shortages widen: State-by-State breakdown - Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia among hardest states hit with fuel outages."

CNBC: "Pipeline outage forces American Airlines to add stops to some long-haul flights."  

Oh, yeah, it's because of the diversity

Fox News: "NBC won't air 2022 Golden Globes."  In their official statement, NBC lied and said it was because they need to see "meaningful reform."  Because NBC cares.

It's totally, totally not due to this:

Extra - From Twitchy.  

This is what you voted for, Baltimore

City Journal: "Anatomy of a Crime Wave - Baltimore’s experiment with de-policing has been disastrous—and deadly."

A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city’s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency.

This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered—one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56—ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.

Whatever you do, Baltimore, don't stop voting for the same politicians who perpetuate the same policies, while running a side hustle.  Same with you, Chicago.  

It's a treadmill

Daily Wire: "Dave Chappelle: ‘No One Can Be Woke Enough’."  

Twitter white-knights for Jimmy Carter

Hot Air: "Twitter's take on a tweet by Donald Trump Jr. is really something special."

Ed Driscoll has it 100% correct here:

I’m assuming the young tykes who program Twitter’s “Trending Posts” are far too young to have been around in the 1970s, and have no knowledge about just how gloomy the Carter years were, with runaway inflation, unemployment, interest rates, gas prices, a defenestrated military and the infamous “malaise speech.” They just know he has a (D) after his name,  he’s not the Bad Orange Man, and his son must be wrong, so Carter must be defended.

Those of us who lived through survived Carter's presidency remember the misery index, gas lines, and American impotence with the hostages in Iran.  The kiddies only know he swung a hammer to build some houses.

By the way, for about a week the Mobil in Chicopee that I pass on my way to work had a sign out front that read: "Store open / NO GAS" and I thought I was back in 1979 again.

When your only tool is a hammer...

...every problem looks like a nail of more spending.

Ace: "More Fallout from Disastrous Jobs Report: Left Declares That The Only Problem Is That Democrats Aren't Spending Enough!"  

I read this morning that out of 79 financial analysts, only two predicted the job gain would be less than 800,000. 

Extra - Federalist: "April Job Numbers Are So Bad, CNBC Thought It Was A Typo."

Beneath the skin, we're all the same

Which is to say: nobody wants to pay taxes.  Yahoo: "50 Cent moves from New York to Houston months after tax rant."  Here's the short answer:

New York state top rate: 8.82%

Texas state top rate (and bottom rate): 0%

This reminds me of a story way back in 2000 when Venus Williams won the U.S. Open.  Then-President Bill Clinton called to congratulate her and Venus complained about paying taxes:

That's $800,000 before Uncle Sam takes his big bite. Which may be why when Bill Clinton called to offer his congratulations, this year's Grand Slam winner took the occasion to make a pitch for a tax cut. Her reasoning was impeccable. Recounting her conversation to the Los Angeles Times, Ms. Williams described it as follows: "He said, 'You really worked hard.' I said, 'See, I did work hard and I want to keep this for me. I'm a good citizen.' " She asked, "Can you lower my taxes, please?"

So unpatriotic.  

Better to keep your mouth shut and be counted a fool

Fox News: "Jen Psaki admits Biden taking impromptu reporter questions is ‘not something we recommend’."  

“All of this is very cultural revolution, very Stalin"

The struggle sessions will continue until morale improves.  Hot Air: "John McWhorter on how to respond to the woke: 'We need to start telling them no'."  

Mad Libs for race hustlers

Every major newspaper has one: the black columnist who writes the same column over and over and over.  The Boston Globe has the awful Renee Graham but the New York Times has Charles Blow who has extruded the next column on his assembly line of race grievance.  This one is called: "Is America a Racist Country?"

Spoiler alert: Blow says "yes."  These articles have become so boilerplate, they can be filled in like a Mad Libs page on a bad baseball team. 

Step One: "Can you believe this guy?" preaching to the choir:

Last Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina added himself to the long list of Republicans who have denied the existence of systemic racism in this country. Graham said on “Fox News Sunday” that “our systems are not racist. America’s not a racist country.”

Can you believe this white guy?  How can he, or Tim Scott, or Kamala Harris deny we live in a racist country?  C'mon!

Step Two: The history from 150+ years ago:

Eight of the first 10 presidents personally enslaved Africans. In 1856, the chief justice of the United States wrote in the infamous ruling on the Dred Scott case that Black people “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

That's right: nothing - nothing at all - has changed since Dred Scott.  Not Brown v. Board of Education, not the Civil Rights Act, not the Fair Housing Act.  We're always living in the sin of Dred Scott.

Step Three: Hard evidence of systemic racism (just kidding):

So, what does it mean for a system to be racist? Does the appellation depend on the system in question being openly, explicitly racist from top to bottom, or simply that there is some degree of measurable bias embedded in those systems? I assert the latter.

He sure does.  Blow can't demonstrate there's any system or institution that is explicitly racist, so we're left to fall back on the old disparate outcome dodge.  It goes like this: if there are racial disparities, it can only be explained by racism.  See how easy it is!  It certainly explains why the NBA is 75% black: racism against white guys.

Every single article is exactly like this, but Blow insists we need a "genuine debate among honest intellectuals" because, in his mind, he's the honest intellectual in this drama.  Only a racist would say otherwise in the ultimate win-win.

There's knitting to be done

Victory Girls: "Kamala Gets Another Job She Won’t Do."  

It also works in Zoom meetings

Joe Biden loves him some science.  Hot Air: "Tapper to Anita Dunn: Hey, why is Biden still wearing a mask outdoors?"  

By the way, remember when Zombie Joe was telling us we only need to wear masks for 100 days - that's all he's asking?  

Update from the Pioneer Valley

The University of Massachusetts Wind Ensemble had a free concert in downtown Amherst today.  Somewhat surprisingly (to me), they started with the "Star-Spangled Banner" and in a crowd of >300 people, I think only three wannabe hippies remained seated.