The Left hates free speech, continued

Spectator: "Disinfo-nation: the new censorship is here to stay - The list of topics on which the government and mass media feel called to protect us from ‘disinformation’ is very long." 

Bidenomics is working!

Hot Air: "Gulp: Delinquencies on credit cards, auto loans highest in a decade."

Nothing says prosperity like crushing debt to pay for eggs. 

This is scary

National Review: "Mitch McConnell’s Second ‘Freeze’ Moment Will Be Hard to Ignore."

Sheesh, there's no shame in retiring Mitch.  

The hero in every story

Joe Biden is the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the hero we need: "Biden Lies Again, Says He ‘Literally’ Convinced Segregationist Strom Thurmond to Vote for Civil Rights Act."

Even among Biden’s innumerable lies, this one sets a new standard for mendacity, as every detail of it is false: the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, eight and a half years before Biden entered the Senate, Thurmond voted against it, and the segregationist senator didn’t die until nearly forty years later. Is it the dementia? Or is it just Joe being Joe? It’s increasingly hard to tell the difference.

Everything Joe touches is pure gold, even that great withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Huge success, c'mon man! 

Everything's great!

Dementia Joe gave the same tired speech he gives twice a week about how "Bidenomics is working."  I'm surprised he still needs a teleprompter.

WSJ: "Americans Are Bailing on Their Home Insurance - Some homeowners who are skipping coverage say they can no longer afford rising premiums"

CNN: "Americans’ credit card debt hits a record $1 trillion"

NY Times: "It’s ‘More Expensive to Live,’ and Workers Are Tapping 401(k)s for Help." 

This ain't Europe, hippies

What makes this extra amusing is that the "Rangers" are Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Police, and the backed up traffic is for Burning Man. Native American cops busting up a standoff between two tribes of white progressives is straight up comedy gold https://t.co/YQzvVmTuo2

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 28, 2023

A contradiction of American policy

Manhattan Contrarian: "The Bidens: "Stone Cold Crooked" - This Is Getting Ridiculous"

At this point this is getting ridiculous.  The firing of Shokin was not official U.S. policy at all (other than as dictated by Biden himself), and was in immediate response to a specific demand from Hunter’s paymasters at Burisma.

There has never been a U.S. President so obviously and thoroughly corrupt.  It is shameful. 

Don't worry: the mainstream media will be all over this story...in 2025.  Just like before. 

No-talent hack

Federalist: "Jon Stewart’s Real Legacy Is A Generation Of Smug, Lazy, Dishonest News Consumers"

This older, more tired Jon Stewart is like a sad tribute act to his younger self. He falls back on a trusted method to sell his political messaging: the gags, the mugging to the camera, the slick video montages, and the mild rebuke of adoring news media hosts before unloading on the nearest Republican he can blame the issue of the day on. It is a threadbare routine. 

I saw an interview Stewart did with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and even she seemed taken aback by his tendentious hackery, as she tried to explain why Walmart tries to make a profit for its shareholders while keeping prices low for Americans.  Stewart instead just wanted to focus on the crime of profit, as if he'd never tried to maximize his own profit margins.

Flashback - Let's not forget the Andrew Sullivan ambush: "The sad demise of Jon Stewart - This once agreeable, sceptical liberal has become a tiresome, hectoring woke scold." 

That's why nobody's watching. 

Hey, I've seen this movie before

Not the Bee: "Zillow is now offering 1% down-payment home loans and I don't think it's hard to figure out where we are headed." 

Collusion

NY Post: "Biden staffers met with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s aides before Trump indictment"

The White House counsel’s office met with a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents — raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts aimed at President Biden’s likely opponent in 2024.

Looks like that absolute wall between the Biden White House and the Department of Justice is as porous as that absolute wall between Biden and Hunter, or the Southern border.

Sounds like a fun time

Washington Free Beacon: "This Portland Woman Won't Date You Unless You Suffer From Crippling Climate Anxiety" - "New York Times guest columnist explains 'why I bring up climate change on first dates'." 

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: you'd need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at this nutcase.

Maui strong

At first I thought this must be an internet fake, but it's a real sign. 

Oops - "accident" in Russia

National Review: "When Falling out of a Window Is Just Too Subtle." 

The only supermarket in Ward 8

Keep an eye on the Giant Supermarket in Ward 8 of Washington D.C.  It is currently losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month due to theft, while local politicians excuse the behavior that will lead to only one conclusion.  

Biden yuks it up in Maui

WTF is wrong with this guy?: "Biden Jokes About "Hot Ground" In Maui and Once Again Lies About Having Survived a Serious Fire."

[Seinfeld voice] "I mean what's the deal with these cadaver canines?  Talk about hot dogs!"

Then - after claiming he didn't want to "compare difficulties" - he did just that by bringing up the fake story about a kitchen fire in his home: "Biden Claims He Knows How Maui Fire Victims Feel by Talking About a Minor Fire at His House."

Read the room, Grandpa.  Nobody gives a s**t you almost lost your Corvette.

Aside from his tone-deaf remarks, I thought it was interesting that Captain Empathy couldn't wait to get out of Hawaii:

Joe Biden's trip to Maui was a bit of a disaster on multiple fronts. The president and his wife landed on Monday, spending just a few confusing hours on the ground before returning to billionaire Tom Steyer's home in Lake Tahoe. 

No kidding.  Rather than spend a single night in Hawaii, Dementia Joe hightailed it back to his vacation at Lake Tahoe, arriving 1:15 in the morning local time.  

A disaster of incompetence in Hawaii

This is a long and detailed review on Hot Air; "Maui response is a disaster."

Almost two weeks after the fire in Maui ripped through Lahaina far too little is still known, far too little has been done to help the victims, and not enough attention has been paid to the series of government failures that led to the worst wildfire losses in American history.

It turns out that fire officials in Hawaii have been sounding the alarm for wildfire prevention for at least 16 years, including a public hearing in 2018 attended by zero state senators.  The guy in charge of emergency operations had no background in disaster response.  The warning sirens weren't used and water was held back for five hours while first responders were put on hold.  It's a stunning display of incompetence, top to bottom, building up for years.

What happened to Lahaina is a tragedy. Thousands still missing, including children.

Everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong. Sirens didn’t go off, water that could’ve been used to put out the flames was restricted, and power lines kept operating despite the danger posed… pic.twitter.com/LHAtKUEnxq

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 21, 2023

The gaslighting will continue until morale improves

Reason: "Americans Aren't Buying 'Bidenomics'."

President Joe Biden's approval ratings are especially low when it comes to the economy, according to the latest Associated Press/NORC poll. Just 36 percent of those surveyed said Biden is doing a good job handling the economy.

The Biden administration pushed hard this month to convince voters that his initiatives—termed "Bidenomics"—have positively impacted the economy. Americans aren't buying it.

Biden gives the same tired, lie-packed speech two or three times a week to unenthusiastic crowds.  Nobody is buying what he's selling. 

Life comes at you fast

 

A single question

Except for Peter Doocy's shouted question, I think this is the only question Dementia Joe has answered in a month:

And with regard to the second question, I make — I have no comment on any investigation that’s going on.  That’s up to the Justice Department, and that’s all I have to say. 

Thanks, Joe!  Now it's vacation time at Lake Tahoe.

Extra - Red State: "Biden's Trilateral Summit Press Conference Is a Mess" 

Biden talks to the press!

It went like this:

THE PRESIDENT:  I’ll speak about one thing: Mrs. Casey.  Nothing else.

 

Q    Okay.

 

THE PRESIDENT:  Do you have a question about Casey?

So, yeah, there you go.

Have you considered getting diabetes?

Newsweek: "One Year Later, President Biden's 'Inflation Reduction Act' Is a Total Flop."

Just think how much you could save if you needed insulin!  Otherwise, that's it.

Your enormous binder can't save you now

Red State: "Karine Jean-Pierre's Incompetence Just Completely Exposed Joe Biden's X Account." 

It's come to this

Newsmax: "Report: Biden Campaign Nixes MSNBC Talk Over Hunter." - "President Joe Biden's reelection campaign canceled an appearance on MSNBC to avoid questions about his son, Hunter Biden, The New York Times reported Saturday."

MSNBC.  

Dementia Joe came back from his long weekend in Delaware today, avoided the press, and then got down to the nation's business of... [checks notes]...eating lunch with Kamala.

If you can't handle softball questions from MSNBC, there's always the Weather Channnel:

Why can't *she* avoid the press like her boss?

Red State: "Karine Jean-Pierre's Maui Fire Comments Devolve Into an Embarrassing Mess of Incompetence."

Her conspicuous dependence upon her huge brown binder to answer questions is embarrassing. 

Whelp, there goes $1609

Breitbart: "Heritage Foundation: American aid to Ukraine costs $900 per household."

CNN: "US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago." 

The DOJ is a clown show

Jonathan Turley: "‘Shoeless Joe’ Weiss and the fixing of the Hunter Biden game."

It was also the same Weiss who reportedly allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Hunter’s major tax offenses, even though he had the option to extend it.

It was the same Weiss who did not indict on major tax felonies and cut a plea deal that brushed aside a felony gun charge.

It was the same Weiss who inked a widely panned “sweetheart” deal that caused a federal judge to balk and trash a sweeping immunity grant — language that even the prosecutor admitted he had never previously seen in a plea deal.

That is why many asked Garland to “say it ain’t so.”

The Weiss appointment definitively established Garland as a failure as attorney general. As someone who initially praised Garland’s appointment, I now see that he has repeatedly shown he lacks the strength and leadership to rise to these moments.

Interesting tidbit from this article: the appointment of Special Counsel to Weiss is also illegal, since the SC is supposed to be "selected from outside the U.S. government."  Great job, Merrick.

If only there were a different option

Twitchy: "Councilman fears DC ward's last grocery store may close due to shoplifting."

The next stage of the coverup

Wall Street Journal: "A Not-So-Special Counsel for Hunter Biden"

This is another example of the way that Mr. Garland, supposedly a man of sound judgment, has belly flopped his department into the 2024 presidential campaign.

He unleashed special counsel Jack Smith to pursue Donald Trump, and Mr. Smith has obliged with two prosecutions. He named a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden’s mishandling of secret documents, but no one expects anything beyond a stern rebuke to come out of that. Now he’s doing the same with the Hunter prosecution to uncertain result.

Mr. Garland claims he has done all this to remove any political taint from the investigations, but this is having the opposite effect. We are now going to have a presidential election debate adjudicated in effect by special counsels. Don’t expect any of this to calm our partisan furies or restore faith in nonpartisan justice.

Good thing he was kept off the Supreme Court, the dancing monkey. 

Maybe that cocaine was hers

Twitchy: "'It's like she speaks in gypsy curses' ... Kamala Harris tried to speak again and it was so bad."

I watched part of this discussion and it's impossible to put aside her inappropriate laughter throughout a talk about gun violence.  What is wrong with her?  

It's Friday so time to play: Camp David or Delaware?

Where will Dementia Joe go this weekend for his never-ending vacation?

It's Delaware.  

Put it on the credit card

Reason: "The U.S. Credit Rating Just Dropped. It's Time for Radical Budget Reform."

CNN: "Americans’ credit card debt hits a record $1 trillion." 

Then there's this development: "Americans Are Pulling From Their 401(k) at Dramatic Rate."

That's Bidenomics!

Gold is soaring...

...which means faith in the government is dropping.  Good video below.  Depressing but good.

Perish the thought!

NY Post: "AG Merrick Garland denies the DOJ is corrupt: ‘Nothing could be further from the truth’."

Star Chamber

Not suspicious at all: "J6 Committee failed to preserve records, has no data on Capitol Hill security failures, GOP charges." 

Dementia Joe's first contact with the press in 2 weeks went about as well as you'd expect

Red State: "Joe Biden Loses It on Peter Doocy After Being Questioned About Infamous Phone Calls."

Angry Joe gets angry when confronted on his lies.

"Your son's former business associates is claiming that you were on speakerphone a lot with them talking business?"

BIDEN: "I never talked business with anybody! I knew you'd have a lousy question."

"Why is that a lousy question?"

BIDEN: "Because it's not true!" pic.twitter.com/R4OYvbc12N

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 9, 2023

Biden held a press conference in East Palestine, OH today

Just kidding: he stared at the Grand Canyon for 45 minutes.

Speaking of things that never happened:

"By the way, I’ll never forget: I was standing in Washington, and a little girl walked up. And I could see her daddy say, “Go up and say something to the President.” She walked up and she said, “Mr. President, would you take care of Bears Ears for me?” And I didn’t know what she meant when she said it: “Would you take care of Bears Ears for me?” Well, we took of her, and we gave her the signing pen."

Sure, Joey baby.

Extra - Federalist: "‘Bidenomics’ Has Been A Disaster." 

After 11 days of vacation, Joe Biden got right back to work...

...meeting with the Houston Astros before flying off to the Grand Canyon.

No questions!  

Now the truth can be told

Jonathan Turley: "Remember that Biden Dinner That Joe Biden Never Attended? Well, he did."

It was the same pattern that we saw with the laptop. The claims of Russian disinformation. The lack of media curiosity. The lack of coverage of the later disclosures. It is the hallmark of a state media, by consent rather than coercion. There are the denials of the incident, the dismissal of the story, and then the downplaying of the countervailing facts.

It would be nice if the mainstream media stopped pretending it was objective and just admitted they're partisans for the Democrats.  They have no interest and display no inclination towards equal treatment.

Last week, the Washington Post 'fact checker" finally - after three years - declared that Joe Biden gets four Pinocchios for claiming that Hunter never made any money in China.  Do you know when it would have been a good time to confirm this allegation?  Back in 2020.  But that would have required asking questions and doing journalism. 

Another view on the indictment

Cato at Liberty: "Seven Questions about the Trump Indictment."  

Kamala bravely runs away

Washington Examiner: "When challenged on her lies, Kamala Harris slinks away."

I call this "lecturing Pence from the Hamilton stage" syndrome.  The Left hates debate and free speech, but they love unchallenged diatribes. 

Thank you Sweden!

Remember this commercial asking "what will it take to beat the US Woman's Team?"  Good times.

Fox News: "Sweden stuns USWNT in penalties; defending Women's World Cup champs eliminated."

Buh-bye, you insufferable brats.  The Meghan Markle's of the entire sports world.

All identity politics, all the time

Federalist: "Is NPR Trying To Start A Race War?"

NPR is just completely unlistenable nowadays.  There's not a single story they run that isn't linked to racial politics or climate panic.

News blackout

NY Post: "Liberal media bends over backward to dismiss new Joe Biden revelations."

No kidding.  I do not exaggerate at all when I state that the main newspaper in Western Massachusetts has not had a single story about Joe Biden in a solid month.  A news search on "Biden" reveals a story from almost a month ago about Governor Martha Healey calling out the Biden administration on immigration policy. 

Nothing about Biden going ass-over-teakettle at the Air Force graduation.  Nothing about the White House evacuation over a suspicious white powder.  Nothing about revelations of influence peddling and kickbacks from China.  Nothing.

We're gonna need a lot more prisons

Kim Strassel: "The Unprecedented Jack Smith - If lying politicians can be prosecuted for ‘fraud,’ as he proposes in the Trump indictment, we’ll need a lot of new prisons."

Take Mr. Trump out of the equation and consider more broadly what even the New York Times calls Mr. Smith’s “novel approach.” A politician can lie to the public, Mr. Smith concedes. Yet if that politician is advised by others that his comments are untruthful and nonetheless uses them to justify acts that undermine government “function,” he is guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the country. Dishonest politicians who act on dubious legal claims? There aren’t enough prisons to hold them all.

Here's a perfect example:

What’s the betting someone told President Biden he didn’t have the power to erase $430 billion in student loan debt. Oh, wait! That’s right. He told himself. “I don’t think I have the authority to do it by signing with a pen,” he said in 2021. The House speaker advised him it was illegal: “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not,” Nancy Pelosi said. Yet Mr. Biden later adopted the lie that he did, and took action to defraud taxpayers by obstructing the federal function of loan processing—until the Supreme Court made him stop.

I guess that's (D)ifferent.

A show trial for our banana republic

I've been perusing some legal analyses on the Trump indictment and they all have a common theme: this is a criminalization of political speech and it pivots on (somehow) proving what was in Trump's mind.   Here's a good section from "Show Trial, American Style":

But there’s a larger reason why the election fraud case is a sham. From election day through January 20 (and even now), millions believed there was election fraud. This was a grievance held by American citizens, Donald Trump among them. They had the right to assemble and to petition their government to redress their grievances. The First Amendment doesn’t qualify this right by inquiring whether the grievances are sincerely held, or if the grievances are backstopped by evidence, or if the petitioners are being deceitful. It’s political speech. In this respect, the indictment’s extensively documented examples of Trump’s badgering and misrepresentations are irrelevant. He had a grievance, and his actions from November 14 through January 20 must fall within the First Amendment’s meaning of “petition the government.” If it doesn’t, then neither does shouting at your congressman about election fraud. Smith knew all of this. The indictment says as much: “[Trump] had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that [it was fraudulent.]” That he indicted Trump anyway indicates this will be a show trial. Its purpose is not to find out if Trump lied or even if there was election fraud. Its purpose is to demonstrate publicly that questioning the regime narrative will not be protected by the First Amendment.

George Washington professor Jonathan Turley is not impressed: 

And I have to tell you, this indictment is really sad moment for me. I hoped that Smith is going to indict on January 6th, that he would find unassailable evidence and unquestioned legal authority. He has neither in this indictment...

This is a speaking indictment but it doesn't say very much. It basically just says that we think Trump is lying that he actually didn't believe this. I can't tell you how facially ridiculous this claim is. It starts up by saying, of course, you can say false things in the campaign, but then says that Trump knew they were false. Is that the test going forward in terms of criminalizing political speech?

Smith is just not only going to have to just bulldoze through the First Amendment, he's going to have to bulldoze through a line of cases by the Supreme Court.

They hate Trump at the National Review and they think this indictment stinks:

Whether misconduct rises to the level of an impeachable offense is indefinite, left to the people’s representatives to assess based on what the facts and circumstances say about a public official’s fitness for duty. Criminal offenses are the antithesis of that. They must be defined by statute with sufficient clarity so that the average person knows what is forbidden, and a defendant is presumed innocent. A guilty verdict must be supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt — proof not only that the person performed the statutorily prohibited acts, but also did so knowing that his conduct was illegal.

Here, it is not even clear that Smith has alleged anything that the law forbids. The indictment relates in detail Trump’s deceptions, but that doesn’t mean they constitute criminal fraud. As the Supreme Court reaffirmed just a few weeks ago, fraud in federal criminal law is a scheme to swindle victims out of money or tangible property. Mendacious rhetoric in seeking to retain political office is damnable — and, again, impeachable — but it’s not criminal fraud, although that is what Smith has charged. Indeed, assuming a prosecutor could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump hadn’t actually convinced himself that the election was stolen from him (good luck with that), hyperbole and even worse are protected political speech.

These are just a handful of the legal opinions I've read.  The other side doesn't even attempt to make a legal argument; it's just the usual Orange Man Bad bleating.  As I noted last night (and stolen by Twitchy today!), if lying about elections is now going to be a crime, the DOJ is going to be busy indicting Martin Sheen and Stacey Abrams.

Remember when Hollywood flunkies tried to overturn an election?

I do.  It seems that the legality of urging electors to ignore their duty shifts (D)epending on who is making the request.  By the way, it looks like the original "Unite for America" video has been pulled down from YouTube so I'll have to depend on this Mark Dice clip:

That's Bidenomics!

Reason: "U.S. Credit Rating Downgrade Is a Sign of Government Dysfunction - The national debt has ballooned from $14 trillion to $32 trillion in a little over a decade."

The rating service also pointed to the widening gap between the federal government's tax revenue and its spending, as well as the "limited progress" being made toward solving looming issues like the projected insolvency of Social Security in the early 2030s.

While the AA+ rating reflects that U.S. debt remains a trustworthy investment, Fitch's downgrade is a warning signal about the federal government's fiscal trajectory.

In my opinion, this downgrade is both appropriate and long-overdue.  We should have pulled back from historic spending after the Covid spree.  Instead, the overweight government spending flooded the economy with money that triggered inflation.  Meanwhile, neither side of the aisle is willing to take even incremental steps towards addressing entitlement spending which is going to auto-pilot the economy over a cliff.

The media circles the wagons

Wall Street Journal: "Devon Archer Throws a Curve - Joe Biden’s denials about Hunter and his laptop are now disproven." 

Altogether Mr. Biden declared “that is not true” or words to that effect eight times. He said seven times that Mr. Trump’s assertions were “discredited,” sometimes “totally discredited.” Near the end he added, “My son did nothing wrong at Burisma.”

Mr. Trump wouldn’t let it rest: Hunter “made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow and various other places.” Mr. Biden again denied it: “That is simply not true.”

Mr. Biden counted on a compliant press to move on, and it largely did. But then the Bidens came up against Judge Maryellen Noreika. She confirmed with Hunter Biden himself that, contrary to his father’s assertions, he did receive a small fortune from Ukrainian and Chinese firms.

It sure did, helped along by those 50 former Intelligence officials who said the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian plant.  Now the media is going to invent a new standard for Biden: "Media Invent New Biden Standard: ‘Proof’ And A ‘Smoking Gun’ Of Bribery Scheme Or It’s Not A Scandal At All."

I expected no less from the thoroughly-corrupt media.

Extra - Red State: "Struggle Session on MSNBC to Defend Joe Biden Is Comedy Gold." 

More - Federalist: "Defenders Of Joe Biden’s Corrupt Phone Calls Sound Ridiculous"

“We know how important family is to the president,” added the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, the same week Joe recognized the existence of his four-year-old grandchild for the first time. “So, do you hang up on your son?”

These people think you’re a bunch of gullible nitwits.

Remember: the Bidens were selling just the illusion of access.  [throws smoke bomb]