Here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts

Eastern MA: "U.S. Education Department Opens Civil Rights Investigation Over Antisemitism At Harvard."

Western MA: "Massachusetts Hate Crimes Task Force Member Accuses Israel of Genocide, Says Jews Control The Media." 

Hasan chop

Outkick: "MSNBC cancels one of the dumbest guys in cable news."  

No, not Joe Scarborough, but that's a good guess. 

Kissinger RIP

Love him or hate him, truly an American icon: "Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dead at 100."

Kamala is really just dim

Twitchy: "Kamala Harris Doesn't Answer When Asked If Israel Is Following the Rules of War."  In case you didn't notice, Kamala doesn't answer questions.  She was told there would be no math.

Her ability to be unprepared for every single question she’s asked is legendary

— Robbb (@bommrob) November 29, 2023

You could have bought a used Toyota Celica

Bidenomics, baby!  CBS News: "Americans need an extra $11,400 today just to afford the basics."

The typical American household must spend an additional $11,434 annually just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in January of 2021, right before inflation soared to 40-year highs, according to a recent analysis of government data.

Such figures underscore the financial squeeze many families continue to face even as the the rate of U.S. inflation recedes and the economy by many measures remains strong, with the jobless rate at a two-decade low. The analysis, from Republican members of the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee, taps government data such as the Consumer Price Index and Consumer Expenditure Survey to examine the impact of inflation state by state.

Even so, many Americans say they aren't feeling those gains, and this fall more people reported struggling financially than they did prior to the pandemic, according to CBS News polling. Inflation is the main reason Americans express pessimism about economy despite its bright points, which also include stronger wage gains in recent years.

Eleven large annually!  Nevertheless, Dementia Joe is going to keep pushing Bidenomics until you ingrates come to your senses.  

Learn to code

Hot Air: "WaPo Buys Out 120 Employees, Prepares to Cut 120 More by Next Week."

You did this to yourself, hacks. 

Very on-brand for Captain Empathy

Federalist: "The Bidens Would Rather Snub All Their Grandkids Than Hang A Christmas Stocking For Navy Roberts."

As the New York Post’s Jesse O’Neill wrote last Christmas, “The only thing worse than getting coal in your stocking is not even having one hung for you.” Indeed, and now the president and first lady are proving the depths of their disdain for Navy Roberts: They’d rather not acknowledge their other six beloved grandchildren than honor their seventh with a stocking.

The snub is even further aggravated by the Biden patriarch’s constant appeals to the importance of family in every other context. Entanglements in bribery scandals? No, just a father’s love for his son. Federal gun crimes? Nah, just a close-knit family grieving.

Looks like Biden's love for his grandchildren only extends as far as their political usefulness. 

Priorities

Reason: "Elizabeth Warren Wants the Government To Investigate America's 'Sandwich Shop Monopoly'."

Some good news

Fox News: "American hostages released by Hamas in Sunday cease-fire exchange with Israel." 

Dementia Joe v. Inflation

 

Bidenomics - there goes the American dream

Wall Street Journal: "Voters See American Dream Slipping Out of Reach, WSJ/NORC Poll Shows"

The American dream—the proposition that anyone who works hard can get ahead, regardless of their background—has slipped out of reach in the minds of many Americans.

Only 36% of voters in a new Wall Street Journal/NORC survey said the American dream still holds true, substantially fewer than the 53% who said so in 2012 and 48% in 2016 in similar surveys of adults by another pollster. When a Wall Street Journal poll last year asked whether people who work hard were likely to get ahead in this country, some 68% said yes—nearly twice the share as in the new poll.

Do you know what would turn around this economy?  Yet another New York Times article about how Americans don't realize how good they have it.  We could pay off the national debt with the cottage industry of limousine liberals explaining why things are acksually great.

I do think changing perceptions of inflation would help a lot. The reality is pretty good if you look at the data. Prices have gone up a lot, of course, but according to a careful analysis by Joseph Politano, an economics writer who looked at the data in multiple ways, since the pandemic, average wages have gone up slightly more than prices. That’s a raise. Interestingly, the percentage gains have been bigger for lower-wage workers.

That’s not the perception, of course.

What are you going to do with these stupid Americans, amirite?  Meanwhile let's keep those Community Notes rolling.

Happy Thanksgiving!

pic.twitter.com/zzfDiZNUCF

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 22, 2023

So *now* it's a crisis

As they say in meme-land: "welcome to the party, pal."  Ace: "Washington Post Warns Democrats: The Border Issue Is Bad for You and Getting Worse."

Old and busted: virtual-signaling on border policy.

New and shiny: factual facts on border policy.

The Red Sea

Reason: "Congress Admits It Has a Debt Problem, But Will It Do Anything? - Servicing debt grows more expensive as the deadline to curb the spending spree gets closer."

Came in second place in a trivia contest tonight

OMG these people are shameless

Twitchy: "She Actually Did It! KJP Brags (With Charts) About How Much Biden Saved You on Thanksgiving Dinner."  

Related: "Please pull the plug on the White House daily press briefings." 

ASU hates free speech?

Hot Air: "ASU Shuts Down Pro-Palestinian Event on Campus Featuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib."

Understandably, venues cancel events featuring Hamas supporters like Tlaib. This is a time for moral clarity. Israel has a right to self-defense and must destroy Hamas. These pro-Palestinian protests and rallies often turn violent, unlike pro-Israel rallies.

ASU is a public state university. Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to support an event that aligns with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. Not only are venues shutting down pro-Palestine events to show support for Israel, but it is also a public safety move.

Here's where I fundamentally disagree with Karen Townsend: I want Rashida Tlaib to keep talking.  I want everybody to hear her and judge if she is the right person to be a Congresswoman.  Furthermore, hiding behind the "public safety move" excuse is just another version of the heckler's veto that conservatives normally deplore when we're on the receiving end.  

Free speech is how we identify the enemies.  We need to hear them for our own safety.

Front page of the NY Post

It never fails to amuse.  Related story: "Mayor Adams Announces Budget Cuts Made Necessary by Migrant Influx."

That's not a surprise

Ace: "Surprise! The Very Special Counsel Appointed by Biden to Investigate Biden's Mishandling of Classified Documents Won't Charge His Boss After All." 

This is it. This is the apotheosis.

I rag on the mainstream media all the time, mostly because I consider "journalists" to be left-wingers who can't suppress their bias.  Every once in a while you also learn they're deeply dumb at the same time.  Hot Air: "New York Times Opinion Columnist Doesn't Know Hamas Runs Gaza."

This gem was dropped in the middle of an argument on Twitter between Noah Blum and Ms “I am so brilliant and wise” Elizabeth Spiers. Blum is Chief Technology Officer of Tablet, an excellent news source focused mainly on Jewish issues. Tablet, however, is alternative media, where you are required to have knowledge before you opine; The New York Times is Mainstream Media, where you don’t.

Spiers, who TEACHES AT A JOURNALISM SCHOOL and writes for THE NEW YORK TIMES didn’t know that Hamas runs the Gaza Health Ministry.

Let that sink in. She literally did not know that. She thought it was a conspiracy theory.

I'm reminded of the time that Rob Reiner was straightened out by Bill Maher:

“Answer this question!” Maher replied. “The question is, was it appropriate to bury the Hunter Biden [laptop story]?”

“And we know for a fact that that’s what they did?” Reiner shot back.

“Of course!” Maher said. “You don’t follow this?”

“I don’t know what they did,” Reiner replied.

“I know because you only watch MSNBC,” Maher said.

At least Meathead can say he's not a journalist.  What's the New York Times' excuse?

Accurate

The Paper of Record: "After Five Minutes With Biden, Xi Gives Order To Invade Taiwan."

When asked why he did this, Xi replied "possibilities." 

Was it covid? I'll bet it was covid

However much you hate the mainstream media, it's not enough.

How do you report that a Jewish peace activist thought to have been taken hostage on October 7th was, in fact, killed in the initial attacks?

If you are Canadian TV News, you leave out the messy details and just report that she “has died.”

The passive voice needs to do a lot of heavy lifting these days.  But then that's when a morsel of news is allowed to survive past the brave and principled journalists who will fold like a card table at the slightest pushback:

“They [Hamas] are aware,” he said, “of the internal political dynamics in the West, and they use them to great effect. They’re not alone in this. China is extremely good at using our internal politics against us.”

Cooke pointed to the recent censorship of an anti-Hamas cartoon at the Washington Post as an example of this in action: “The forces in Gaza are so good at it that when the Washington Post runs cartoons making fun of the means by which the propaganda is achieved . . . the people that they’re trying to manipulate go to the Washington Post editorial board and complain so loudly that the Washington Post takes it down.”

This morning, I tuned into NPR at the top of the hour for the news review.  NPR doesn't archive its news reviews so you'll have to take my word for this: they reported that the Israelis were attacking a hospital in Gaza then said the IDF said that Hamas was hiding out in the hospital..."without proof."

And there you go: Hamas terrorists are to be believed but you just can't trust the word of the Israelis.  The western mainstream media in a nutshell. 

Perish the thought!

Federalist: "Willfully Blind David Weiss Pinky Promises Political Favoritism Didn’t Affect Hunter Biden Probe." 

Juiced-up OJ

Confounded Interest: "Bidenomics Breakfast! Orange Juice Prices UP 47% Under Biden (Even Though Food CPI Has Slowed To 3.69% YoY)."

I blame these guys:

Journalists really are the worst

I don't know why this sets me off so much:

He wants a minimum tax of 25% on the wealthiest Americans, a levy that would be applied not only to income but unrealized capital gains. The idea, which Biden called the “billionaire minimum income tax,” could prove difficult to put in place, not to mention extremely hard to push through Congress, given Republican opposition to higher taxes.

Know why else it will be hard to pass?  Because there is zero percent chance that this is Constitutional.  We do not - and never have - taxed held assets in America.  It's right there in the Fifth Amendment:

The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows: “Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” In understanding the provision, we both agree that it is helpful to keep in mind the reasons behind it. We agree that the Clause is intended to uphold the principle that the government should not single out isolated individuals to bear excessive burdens, even in support of an important public good. When this happens, the payment of “just compensation” provides a means of removing any special burden. The most influential statement of this principle is found in Armstrong v. United States (1960), where the Supreme Court wrote: “The Fifth Amendment’s [Takings Clause] . . . was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.”

The Associated Press just parrots left-wing talking points and not a single editor or publisher adds the relevant Constitutional context.  Every time, man, every time.

None of the above

Karl Rove: "Voters Want Anyone but Trump or Biden"

Neither party’s front-runner will be easily dislodged. But if no changes are made, Americans will get the worst dumpster fire of a campaign in history. It doesn’t have to be this way, and everyone but Messrs. Trump and Biden has good reason to try changing it. The party that picks a fresh face will likely win the White House.

That's why I support Ron DeSantis: a young-ish family man with an accomplished record in both federal and state offices.  He would absolutely destroy Dementia Joe in the general election.  I understand the affection the GOP base has for Trump but, practically speaking, we want to win.  Trump is a gamble when voters are going to be choosing only to stop the other guy.  

News from Western Mass

MassLive: "Smith College lecturer says she was fired after speaking about Israel-Hamas war in class"

Sheesh, can't professors talk about relevant subjects in their history or political science classes?

Demar was hired for the fall 2023 semester to teach Dance 540: The history and literature of dance, a graduate level course.

Oh.

That's Bidenomics!

NY Post: "Moody’s warns US credit rating at risk due to large fiscal deficits causing ‘negative’ outlook."

Shimon Peres at Davos

National Review: "What would you do?"

Peres then reads Moussa, Erdogan, and all of us the Hamas charter: which calls for the murder of Jews, as a holy command. As he proceeds from that, Peres gets more and more emotional, shouting into the microphone, perhaps not realizing how loud his voice is in the hall. Passion — indignation, idealism, and some despair — pours out of him, as he defends his country and, in a way, his life.

Like most people who can't defend their positions, Erdogan walked off the stage and declared himself the winner. 

"Loan repayment"

 

This was their choice since 2005

David Harsanyi: "If Palestinians Wanted Peace And Prosperity, They’d Already Have It."

Just do your job

Reason: "The U.S. Needs a Fiscal Commission Because Congress Won't Do Its Job" - "In the last 50 years, when the budget process has been in place, Congress has managed only four times to pass a budget on time." 

Tlaib censured

Legal Insurrection: "House Votes to Censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib Over Anti-Israel Comments, Including 22 Democrats" - “If this is not worthy of censure, what is? When you can call for the annihilation of a country and its people, if that’s not worthy of a censure, what is?”

As predicted, she played the victim card. 

Whispers getting louder

Ace: "Now That Polls Show Biden Losing to Trump, Politico Writes a Hit Piece About Joe Biden's Corruption."

Yeah, funny how that works.  Somebody noted that the NY Times dropped their bombshell poll results in the Sunday edition instead of their usual Friday night news dump when there's news that negatively impacts a Democrat.  

David Axelrod is the early messenger.  Watch the dam break if the polls continue to break against Dementia Joe.  

Western Mass update

Hot Air: "UMass Condemns Islamophobia After Jewish Student Assaulted on Campus."

This is completely unsurprising for UMass.  

This again

Red State: "It's Crazy That Biden's People Can't Stop This: Joe Tells Bizarre Debunked Story Twice in Less Than Hour."

I saw that Dementia Joe was speaking to Amtrak workers today and saw this coming.  He can't help himself.  But then he also thinks that Bidenomics is going gangbusters. 

Kangaroo court in NY

Andrew McCarthy is a former assistant U.S. attorney and he doesn't think much of the current case against Trump in NYC: "Latest in NY Farce: AG Letitia James Publicly Taunts Trump on Eve of His Testimony."

In a real trial with a real judge, the attorney for the government would not dare pull a stunt like James’s post right as the lead defendant is about to take the witness stand. This, to the contrary, is a show trial in which elected Democrat James’s elected Democrat sidekick, Judge Arthur Engoron, pronounced Trump guilty before the trial began. The two-to-three month farce that has ensued is simply about how much Engoron is going to let (or, better, help) James run up the score — i.e., the “disgorgement” penalty that could spike to more than a quarter-billion dollars by the time all is said and done . . . in a “fraud” case where there are no fraud victims.

Remember, James’s case is the scraps that federal and state prosecutors decided not to indict because nobody was harmed by Trump’s inflation of asset values — particularly under circumstances where (a) Trump’s statements of financial condition contain a disclaimer essentially warning that they should not be relied upon, and (b) at issue are high-end transactions involving sophisticated financial actors (e.g., banks and insurance companies) that do their own due-diligence before transacting.

I think it was Jonathan Turley who said all these cases are Soviet show trials, except for maybe the documents case.  Even in that case, the DOJ will need to explain how Trump's document storage at Mar-A-Lago - surrounded by the Secret Service - is somehow worse than Biden's classified documents strewn all over the Eastern seaboard. 

After the virtue signaling

Dan McLaughlin: "Are they for real? Deluded mayors demand $5 billion from taxpayers to fix a migrant crisis THEY welcomed to their 'sanctuary cities'."  

Choo choo!

Reason: "Biden Threatens To Veto GOP Spending Bill That Would 'Cut' Amtrak Funding to Double Pre-Pandemic Levels" - "Amtrak has historically received $2 billion in federal subsidies each year. Under Republicans' "draconian" cuts, they'd receive over $5 billion next year." 

Great job, Michigan

The Corner: "Rashida Tlaib Posts Video Pushing Genocidal Rhetoric against Jews."

This is not a random video Tlaib reposted which she could claim to have not fully vetted. It is a video in which she herself appears, and it’s posted under her own account. She is well aware that she is calling for genocide against Jews and doesn’t care.

Why should she care?  All the members of the Squad come from deep blue districts that support these beliefs.  There will be no repercussions for Tlaib and she'll cry victim if anybody tries.

pic.twitter.com/7sH02OygNb

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 3, 2023

It's Friday: Camp David or Delaware?

It's Delaware!  Back to the beach, baby.

Sadly accurate

The Bee does it again:

The Left hates free speech...

...well, much more than the Right.  Here are the numbers: "Liberal college students dream of a nation without free speech."  "Per the results, students on the right have a 59% tolerance rate for liberal speech (L1, L2, L3). Yet students on the left have only a 21% tolerance for conservative speech (C1, C2, C3)."

Extra - Nate Silver: "Free speech is in trouble." 

What a coincidence

Twitchy: "It's Looking Like '10 Percent for the Big Guy' Was No Joke (the Math Checks Out)."

It's totally OK because Sara Biden wrote "loan repayment" on the check and not "not a bribe from China."