But insulin is $35

PJ Media: "The Biden Economy Is Falling Apart, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once." 

Risk management

NY Post: "While Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, top executive pushed ‘woke’ programs." - "A head of risk management at Silicon Valley Bank spent considerable time spearheading multiple “woke” LGBTQ+ programs, including a “safe space” for coming out stories, as the firm catapulted toward collapse." 

There go entitlements

Wall Street Journal: "Biden’s Budget Is an Assault on Social Security - High taxes and crushing regulations will starve entitlement programs into insolvency."

President Biden released his 2024 budget request Thursday while continuing to accuse Republicans of scheming to cut benefits for seniors. But he’s got it backward. By advancing policies that hinder the economic growth that drives prosperity, Mr. Biden and his Democratic colleagues are the ones depriving Social Security and Medicare of the hundreds of billions of dollars those programs need to remain solvent.

Biden couldn't get these tax and spend proposals passed when Democrats controlled both sides of Congress.  This is a just a political document, to be dismissed.

Funny 'cause it's true

The Paper of Record: "Senate To Now Be Controlled By Whichever Party Has Fewer Senators In Hospital." 

The Left hates free speech: Stanford Law version

Hot Air: "Heckler's Veto: Judge shouted down at Stanford law school with help from Dean of DEI."

Yes, a dean joined in to shout down - not debate - somebody with whom they disagreed.  Future lawyers.

Extra - Powerline: "Stanford University disgraces itself."

More - Legal Insurrection: "Stanford Law Students, With Support From Diversity Dean, Shout Down Visiting Appeals Court Judge Because He’s Conservative." 

AYFKM?

Hot Air: "J6 committee co-chair: None of us watched the surveillance video, actually." 

Pure gaslighting from the NY Times

The Corner: "The Fetterman Guarantee."

In an absolutely shocking piece of “journalism,” the New York Times profiles how the office of John Fetterman is operating while the senator recovers from severe depression and a stroke at Walter Reed Hospital.

There is so much in this report that is wrong, troubling, or outright horrifying that it cannot be covered in a single blog post or column. Here’s one: “It is not unusual for lawmakers to be told by members of their staff, sometimes after the fact, what bills they are co-sponsoring.” This is simply not true.

This story is part of the ongoing prevarication by Democrats and the media - I repeat myself - that Fetterman is a functioning Senator as long as he maintains room temperature. 

Fish gotta swim. Democrats gotta...

PJ Media:"Chuck Schumer Calls for Censoring Tucker Carlson Over J6 Coverage."

Of course.  I watched Tucker's Monday show (missed Tuesday) and all he did was provide additional footage and context that was denied the American people during the sham J6 hearings.  It was always a Soviet show trial and Tucker proved that by showing videos pushing back on the chosen narrative.  Watching the Shaman politely escorted by Capitol Police and Brian Sicknick upright moments after he was "killed" was a revelation conveniently hidden from view up until now.

But Democrats, as always, are eager to confront those they disagree with facts on their side, right?  That's why this headline was exciting!  "Sen. Chuck Schumer agrees to go on Tucker Carlson’s show IF… (LOL)."

Yeah, they don't do that.  Otherwise you end up getting called out on national television.  Stay in your safe zone, kiddos.

Truth below:

Not only does this guy want to censor Tucker he wants to compel his speech before he even goes on his show.
Dems cannot tolerate any dissenting views. Ever.
They are unbelievably weak. https://t.co/RPPvkEDOmE

— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellUSA) March 8, 2023

We're broke

Heritage: "From Concerning to Terrifying: 7 Horrible Milestones on Horizon for Bloated Federal Budget."

That's just *one* MSNBC reporter

Twitchy: "Tom Elliott’s mega-thread takes a blowtorch to MSNBC analyst’s ‘name the lie’ challenge." 

We are Borg. You will be intoxicated.

Western Massachusetts update: "UMass Amherst warns against TikTok binge drinking trend after 28 ambulance calls Saturday."

University of Massachusetts Amherst is warning against a TikTok trend after the Amherst Fire Department received 28 calls for ambulance transports over the weekend.

UMass and Amherst officials said in a press release that numerous students were seen carrying “borgs” or “blackout rage gallons,” gallon jugs filled with alcohol, electrolytes and water, during off-campus student gatherings on Saturday. The binge drinking trend gained popularity on the social media app TikTok and has been seen at colleges around the country.

Every March, we need to make plans to stay far away from Amherst during the Blarney Blowout.

Sanctuary city

NY Post: "Biden’s migrant mess now costing NYC nearly $5M a day."  Oh that's a shame.

Venn diagrams

American Thinker: "It begins: NYT and its Democrats launch bid to revamp Kamala Harris into presidential material."

Well, it's not the Times per se but noted cheater Donna Brazile.  Good luck with all that. 

Fulfilling the Buttigieg standard for the DOT

Townhall: "Biden's FAA Nominee Can't Answer a Single Question About Aviation."

More on Sotomayor's great legal mind

James G. Martin Center: "The Supreme Court Hears Arguments in the Challenge to Biden’s Student-Loan Giveaway."

As is her wont, Justice Sonia Sotomayor would like the case to be decided on emotional grounds. She said to Nebraska’s attorney, “There’s 50 million students who will benefit from this. Many of them don’t have assets to bail them out after the pandemic. And what you’re saying is that we’re going to give judges the right to determine how much to give them instead of the Secretary of Education.” That probably won’t sway any of the justices who understand that the case turns on the legality of what the president has decreed, not on how many people might benefit from having their student loans cancelled.

Imagine that: a Justice ruling on the law.  Sotomayor is a joke.

The Wise Latina just making stuff up

Considering the case for student loan forgiveness before the Supreme Court, I wrote this the other day:

My feeling is that this effort to disappear obligations to the government is so wildly unconstitutional that only Sotomayor could possibly vote for it.

Charles C.W. Cooke similarly noticed Sotomayor's shoddy legal reasoning designed to bring about her desired outcome: "Please show us the Experts Clause of the Constitution, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan."

This is a nonsense argument from Sotomayor. First off, the question before the Court is not “how much aid” to give to students. The question before the Court is whether the statute it is examining — the 2003 HEROES Act — confers upon the executive branch the power to do what it’s trying to do. If it does, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. The amount of aid doesn’t enter into that calculation. Neither does the level of “expertise and experience” exhibited by the incumbent Secretary of Education. That Secretary could have the most sparkling mind in American history, or he could be a total moron, and, in both cases, the issue before the Court would be same: “Does he have the power to do it?” There is no provision within the United States Constitution that accords unlimited power to bureaucrats simply because some people consider them to be well-credentialed.

As for Sotomayor’s suggestion that, by superintending this statutory matter, the Court is taking it upon itself to set policy, “instead of leaving that decision in the hands of the person who has experience with these questions,” that too is absolute rot.

Sotomayor is a fraud.

News from Berkeley East

Boston Globe: "Northampton to use pandemic relief dollars for ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ manhole covers - Four custom manhole covers will be incorporated into an upcoming Main Street redesign."

Other taxpayer's money. 

It's gonna be a "no" from me, dawg

SCOTUSblog: "Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan gets cold reception from conservative justices."

If you recall, dear reader, the Biden administration kept changing the rules on this scheme to avoid standing so this case would never arrive at the Supreme Court.  Now that it's there, it looks like dead meat.

As predicted, the Wise Latina settled on the answer she wanted and worked backwards to find the legal justification.  

Listening to oral arguments on student loan case

The student loan forgiveness case - Biden v. Nebraska - was before the Supreme Court today and better legal minds than mine will have commentary later.

But expect to hear a lot about the lawn care kid.

Chief Justice Roberts presented a hypothetical where two brothers went to college: one of them took federal loans and the other took a loan to start a lawn care business to save and/or pay off his tuition.  Justice Roberts asked why the lawn care kid shouldn't have his loans forgiven.

The Biden Administration's position is: oh, that kid is SOL.

Regrets, they have a few

Say, anybody heard from Glenn Kessler recently?

Yesterday's conspiracy theories

Wall Street Journal: "U.S. Energy Department Report Says Lab Leak Most Likely Source of Global Coronavirus Pandemic."

Now - now - the truth can be told that virtually everything said about Covid was wrong.  We should set up a betting pool to see when it's revealed the vaccine contained tracking microchips? 

Extra - Jonathan Turley: "COVID lab leak is a scandal of media and government censorship." 

Inflation rises again

Wall Street Journal: "Battle of the Inflation Bulge - The PCE price rebound in January supports the view of the Federal Reserve’s hawks."

You knew the inflation report was bad because Biden didn't rush out and add a speech to his daily schedule.  Instead he just flew to Delaware for the weekend. 

He's useless

Fox News: "Jordan questions Biden's hiring of Pete Buttigieg amid East Palestine fallout: 'no transportation experience'." 

"The president can't do it—so that's not even a discussion"

So said Nancy Pelosi back in 2021 before she decided - tada! - never mind.  Reason: "No, the HEROES Act Doesn't Let Biden Forgive Student Loans - "If it was an emergency, why wait three years to provide the forgiveness? Why present it in a political framework, as fulfilling a campaign promise?" said one higher education expert."

My feeling is that this effort to disappear obligations to the government is so wildly unconstitutional that only Sotomayor could possibly vote for it.

Yeah, I've noticed

Hot Air: "401Krushed: Bidenomics and retirement are not good bedfellows." - "Retirees lost 23% of their 401(k) savings in 2022, Fidelity says." 

It's a mystery why trust in the media keeps plunging

Ace: "Andrea Mitchell Lies, Claiming Ron DeSantis Demands That "Slavery and the Aftermath of Slavery Should Not Be Taught to Florida Schoolchildren"."

We can no longer treat them respectfully. We can no longer treat them with dignity.

We can no longer treat them with tolerance.

Tolerance and respect are a two-way street -- and when one side refuses to grant it, the other side must refuse to grant it back.

Andrea Mitchell later submitted a completely horses--t "apology" to try to address the backlash but the damage was done.  I know I've said this before but it's long past time that Republicans push back on the Chuck Todds of the media (essentially everyone) who have no interest in fairness and objectivity.

Every conservative/Republican should show up on the Sunday talk shows with the absolutely reasonable assumption that the host is an enemy.  They need to confronted on previous statements and the disparity in questions depending on political persuasion.  This is required homework: there should be no expectation that the mainstream media will be fair. 

Extra - Being in the mainstream media means never having to say you're sorry.  

10% for the big guy

Shot: "Biden's 'Buy American' Promise Is a Lot More Complicated and Bureaucratic Than It Seems."

Chaser: "Biden's Climate Bill Was Meant To Combat China. Now a Chinese Firm Is Poised To Cash In." 

Confirming what we already knew

Surprise: the New York Times is a hive mind of would-be Madame Defarges, ready to condemn those who would oppose the Establishment.

Hot Air: "Ex-NY Times staffer: 'It was like a Maoist struggle session'."  

Haha - I *just* used that metaphor!

Twitchy: "LOL: The Left eating the Left is on the menu as Code Pink crashes Biden’s DC dinner."

Biden and his party encouraged this kind of public harassment. They've refused to enforce laws to stop it when the targets are conservative Supreme Court justices. They laughed at Rand Paul and Ted Cruz being mobbed.

This is the alligator eating the one who fed it. https://t.co/WfYCxbkpPk

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) February 19, 2023

The crocodile eats you last

NY Post: "Radical left turns on woke New York Times." - "After abandoning standards of fairness to push a crazy woke agenda, they are suddenly discovering that appeasing the far left is impossible." 

Call it the Buttigieg threshold

How bad do you have to be at your job before you get fired?  Federalist: "Why Is Pete Buttigieg Allowed To Keep Failing Upward?" 

Not a joke: we're going broke

Issues & Insights: "The CBO Exposes Biden’s $5.45 Trillion Lie." - "While spending the country into ruin, President Joe Biden likes to portray himself as a fiscal conservative who has cut the deficit in half in the past two years. But a new report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office shows just how big a lie this is — a 5 1/2 trillion dollar lie, to be exact." 

Gaslighting in action

Legal Insurrection: "Gallup/Knight Survey: Half of Americans Believe “News Organizations Intend to Mislead Them”."

Great job, guys, great job.  You burned it all down.

Today's feel-good story in 3 acts

Wokester: "You're a Nazi, J.K. Rowling!"

The second richest woman in England: "I think I'll contact my lawyer."

Wokester: "I abjectly apologize."

Entirely predictable because of math

Hot Air: "CBO: Deficits will rise to $2 trillion per year over the next decade."

Unsurprisingly, these deficits will be driven by entitlement spending, a fiscal reckoning that has been known for decades.  We're now in a political standoff where nobody is willing to make necessary changes and both Medicare and Social Security will run out of cash.  Gradual changes that could have been made years ago will now lead to crashing tidal waves of forced reform.

The important thing is that we didn't profile

Legal Insurrection: "Police Knew About MSU Shooter, Progressive Prosecutor’s Soft-on-Crime Approach Kept Him on the Street" - “The initial charge was a felony that carried a potential penalty of five years in prison, according to the records.”

There's a lot of competition

Hot Air: "Is this the dumbest NPR headline ever?" 

Watch this video

Joe Biden is an absolute liar and hypocrite when it comes to Social Security:

When CRT replaces the three Rs

Legal Insurrection: "Baltimore: 23 Schools Have Zero Students Who Can Do Math at Grade Level."

If you factor in schools where one or two students passed, that number of failing schools doubles.

For those of you from Baltimore, that means 46.

Sign of the times

Straight from Los Angeles: "Sherman Oaks restaurant stops accepting cash after 7 break-ins."  One robbery every month of operation.  

Unsurprising

Dementia Joe backs out of the traditional interview with the airer of the Super Bowl.  That would be Fox.  I think we all saw this coming.

The end of Disney

 Chicago Boyz: "The last straw of us." 

Yoink!

NY Post: "NYC shoplifting hit record highs last year: ‘We can’t stop them’."

I think it was somebody commenting on the border crisis who said "if you call everyone who wants to stop the flow of illegals 'racist,' - guess what - people are going to hire the racists to fix the problem."  Since the police and security are powerless to stop theft, either shopkeepers are going to start shooting or we're just going to order everything shipped to Amazon lockers.

Unclear on the concept: NY Times edition

Reason: "The New York Times Warns That Freedom of Speech 'Threatens Public Health' and 'Democracy Itself'.  Key graf: "There is no denying that when people are free to express their opinions, no matter how misguided, ill-informed, or hateful, some of them will say things that are misleading, demonstrably false, or divisive. The First Amendment nevertheless guarantees their right to say those things, based on the premise that the dangers posed by unfettered speech are preferable to the dangers posed by government attempts to regulate speech in what it perceives as the public interest." 

Why don't they fix the speech on his teleprompter?

Joe Biden keeps repeating the same lie, over and over:

Biden said Republicans want to cut taxes for billionaires, “who pay virtually only 3% of their income now – 3%, they pay.”

Facts First: Biden’s “3%” claim is incorrect. For the second time in less than a week, Biden inaccurately described a 2021 finding from economists in his administration that the wealthiest 400 billionaire families paid an average of 8.2% of their income in federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018; after CNN inquired about Biden’s “3%” claim on Thursday, the White House published a corrected official transcript that uses “8%” instead. Also, it’s important to note that even that 8% number is contested, since it is an alternative calculation that includes unrealized capital gains that are not treated as taxable income under federal law.

Despite this walkback, Biden repeated this falsehood again today, citing the 3% figure which has been thoroughly debunked by his own White House.

It's obvious that Dementia Joe is just reading off an enormous teleprompter at every speech.  Why doesn't his staff fix this error?

Related: Jonathan Turley: "Biden's bottomless Pinocchio." 

Looks like I wasn't the only one not watching

Hot Air: "SOTU ratings fall 29% over 2022, least watched in 30 years."  

Hard pass

I won't be watching Dementia Joe's State of the Union address.  I can only take so much unity. 

The state of the union is terrible

Federalist: "Here’s Everything Biden Won’t Tell You About The Disastrous State Of Our Union."

Americans aren't fooled anymore: "Four in 10 Americans say they've gotten worse off financially since Joe Biden became president, the most in ABC News/Washington Post polls dating back 37 years."

You read that right: the worst economic rating for a President since they started taking this poll.  Way to go, Joey baby!

Watch the media narrative shift as predictably as possible

There's a new Don't Walk Run video out today on Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents, but it's more interesting to see how the media covers up for Joey.

The narrative shifts - conveniently! - from "it was only a handful of documents" to "there's too much overclassification" as the story unfolds.

The mainstream media commits suicide

Here's a brief overview of a much larger report in the Columbia Journalism Review about how so-called "news" reporters went insane to get Orange Man:

Several days ago the most comprehensively documented and carefully written account of the mainstream media’s toxic and ultimately self-destructive relationship with Donald Trump was published by Columbia Journalism Review. And if you haven’t heard about it, then that doesn’t surprise me, because the reaction from the rest of the mainstream media (including its reliably voluble and strident online commentariat) has been notably muted as well.

The reason is that the piece from CJR (a reliably institutional media organ, informally the dean of its academic wing) was a thoroughly sourced and timelined four-part series by ex–New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth about how Russiagate — which now best describes the media’s conduct in publishing, amplifying, and laundering what turned out to be partisan-concocted bunk about Trump’s purported treasonous compromise by the Russian government — ended up destroying its institutional credibility. It opens by noting that prior to Trump’s taking office (not winning the election, mind you, but taking office) the mainstream media held a net positive rating among Americans in institutional reputation, but that rating now hovers around a 26 percent level of credibility. And more than anything else, it was their recklessness in pursuing the fantasy of Russiagate that frittered away that institutional capital.

I generally try to avoid talking about Trump on this blog but I revel in watching the demise of the mainstream media, which has had nothing but an adversarial and hostile relationship against American conservatives in general and Republican politicians in particular.  The cottage industry of criticism against Ron DeSantis is just the latest example of their playbook.  Keep it up, clowns, and never look back.

INDEFENSIBLE: If a book-length compilation of errors and dishonest coverage — printed in the Columbia Journalism Review, and written by a reporter with the credentials of Jeff Gerth — doesn’t get picked up by MSM at all, it’s proof they will never reform. https://t.co/ZBDchee5nm

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 1, 2023

The balloon vs. the airhead

PJ Media: "For God's Sake. Just Shoot the Damn Thing Down Already." 

Sure it was, Joe, sure it was

Twitchy: "Biden accepts no blame for inflation because ‘it was already there when I got here, man’."

If only there were some kind of government agency that tracked things like this.

Extra - Red State: "Paging the Liberal Media: Fact Check This Raging Lie From Joe Biden." 

"A bizarrely poor strategy"

The Corner: "What’s Wrong with Hunter Biden’s Legal Team?"

The legal strategy seems to be that they're suing because people are spreading content of Hunter's laptop which they - simultaneously - insist is not Hunter's laptop.

Huh?

That's what the media does

Federalist: "The Media Keep Lying To Protect Ilhan Omar."

Omar, when already a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, compared the United States to Hamas and the Taliban. After she was elected to Congress, Omar diminished the 9/11 attacks—“some people did something”— to exaggerate the presence of “Islamophobia” in this country, a comment that was worse, not better, in context. When Omar says House members are expected to pay “allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country” or that supporters of Israel are in it for “Benjamins,” she is not “being critical” of any policy, she is spreading ugly “tropes.”

The press then uncritically repeats Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s claim that Democrats “unequivocally condemned” Omar four years ago, without any pushback. But either Jeffries is lying or doesn’t understand that “unequivocal” means with “no doubt and “unambiguous.” The House passed a watered-down resolution mentioning Alfred Dreyfus, Leo Frank, Henry Ford, and “anti-Muslim bigotry” — and a bunch of other bad -isms — that never even mentions Omar. One expects there will be no media “fact checks” forthcoming.

The Democrats never think the policies they initiate will backfire on them.  It seems this is a lesson they refuse to learn and the media is happy to preserve their preferred narrative.

News from Massachusetts

Legal Insurrection: "Massachusetts Bill Offers to Cut Your Prison Time if You Donate Organs." 

It's called a Commonwealth, so share your kidney.

One of these stories is real

The Bee: "Biden Shows Off New Electric Car That Can Hold Over 17 Boxes Of Classified Documents."

Not the Bee: "Bernie Sanders charges $95 for event called "It's Okay To Be Angry About Capitalism" 

No longer a sanctuary city, Mayor?

Fox News: "NYC Mayor Eric Adams pleads with White House for more help on migrant crisis."

You hate to see it.

Joe Biden is a congenital liar

Red State: "Biden's Brain Breaks and He Comes up With a Doozy of a New Amtrak Story."

Here it is:

“I can say it now since there’s different leadership,” Biden confided. “I used to about 15% of the time ride with the engineers. For real. And I’m the only guy that I’m aware of, when I stopped riding Amtrak that had a key to get in the back.”

This is absolutely a lie.

I'm in a unique position to comment on this tall tale.  My father was an engineer for Conrail and then Amtrak over a 30-year career working out of Sunnyside Yard in Queens.  He told me in no uncertain terms that unauthorized personnel were not allowed in the cab, under any circumstances.  In fact, he told me the story of a fellow engineer who thought it would be cool to show his young son what he does and bought him into the cab for a ride.  Upon reaching the end of the line, he was summarily fired. 

Why does Biden feel the need to lie about his past, over and over?  Is he that insecure or is he just senile?  You can tell he's lying when he says "not a joke" or "my word as a Biden."  It's fiction.

Returning to the scene of the crime

Twitchy: "Miranda Devine spots a ‘strange’ last-minute change to Biden’s weekend schedule."

The White House updated the President's Daily Schedule to indicate Biden will be leaving his vacation at Camp David to resume his vacation in Delaware this afternoon.

Why the sudden update?  Time to clean out the garage: "FBI seized Biden notebooks that may reference classified material in Delaware home search." 

One question

I wondered if Dementia Joe Biden was going to answer any questions on his classified documents, considering the discovery of additional items were found over the previous weekend by the FBI.  Not only did he avoid the documents issue, Joe only did a handful of events and made sure that there was no chance for the press to ask questions.

Essentially Joe came back from vacation on Monday, answered a single question about Ukraine on Wednesday, and went back on vacation today. 

Got his first name wrong and forgot his last

NY Post: "Biden repeatedly calls Dem Rep. Don Beyer by wrong name in echo of ‘Where’s Jackie?’ gaffe." 

Patty Murray recommends

Ace: "Surprise! Biden's Latest Appointment to the Federal Judiciary Doesn't Know What Article II of the Constitution Is."

Here's the moment where she lamely says: "I was told there would be no math."  (Same vibe).

CRINGE: Biden federal district court nominee Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, from Washington state's Spokane County Superior Court, cannot answer simple questions about the Articles of the US Constitution during Senate Judiciary Committee hearing pic.twitter.com/pbYY2YI2iZ

— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) January 26, 2023

Lucy and the football again

Hot Air: "So we're doing Social Security reform again?"

No...no we're not.  The flailing Biden administration is already spreading the well-worn biannual lie to scare Grandma.  Republicans will recoil from any reform effort and nothing will change.  The only way there will ever be any reform is if responsible politicians start with the fact that Social Security is going broke.

Repeat these words from the Social Security Trustees Report over and over:

Based on our best estimates, the 2022 reports determine:

• The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays retirement and survivors benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits on a timely basis until 2034, one year later than reported last year. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits.

Until the debate is reframed to emphasize the mathematical fact that benefits will be cut automatically - by law - there will never be any reform.

He's an awesome musician (his sister too)

Time: "Who Is Clyde Lawrence, the Artist Testifying at the Senate Ticketmaster Hearing?"

I saw Clyde Lawrence on the news tonight and I was so excited.  Lawrence is a soul-funk band with Clyde and Gracie Lawrence at the heart.  I've been a big fan for years and caught their act at the (now defunct) Iron Horse in Northampton, MA.  Boy, I'm so glad I did because 1) they put on an awesome high-energy show, 2) the Iron Horse closed down and 3) they're too big now for podunk venues like Western Massachusetts.

Good for Lawrence.

Here's the acoustic version of "Don't Lose Sight" which you might recognize in the background of a recent Microsoft Surface commercial:

It's come to this

Legal Insurrection: "British Museum Now Banning Term “Mummy” to ‘Respect’ Ancient Dead." 

Why wouldn't they? They're laying around EVERYWHERE

Red State: "BREAKING: FBI May Search More Locations 'Tied to Biden' for Classified Docs."

Make sure you lay them out on the floor for a sweet photo-op. 

YGTBKM

Fox News: "DOJ seizes more classified docs from Biden's Wilmington home after 12-hour search." 

BREAKING: President Biden’s personal attorney says DOJ searched Biden’s Wilmington home on Friday and discovered 6 more classified documents, which they took possession of. Some of the documents were from Biden’s time in the Senate, others from his time as VP. @FoxNews

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) January 22, 2023

The mainstream media commits suicide

Red State: "When It Comes to Trusting the Media, We're Past the Point of No Return."

It’s very hard to argue with the idea that we’re now past the point of no return when it comes to whether or not to trust the mainstream media. Even with Donald Trump out of office, the media hasn’t stopped. They’re only getting worse in their partisan attacks and it’s getting to a point where conservatives really have no recourse other than to not engage anymore.

Here in Western Massachusetts, the Springfield paper has been in a slow decline, filling in the spaces with syndicated stories and advice columnists.  In my opinion, the editorial direction has been so completely lopsided that the once-vibrant letters page used to invite viewpoints from all over the political spectrum.  Now the same four or five kooks write every letter to the paper, always adhering to the far-left viewpoint.  It's one big bubble and anybody to the right of a typical Northampton reader has given up on dialogue...and subscriptions.  

Friday night news dump

Fox News: "Over quarter of a million migrant encounters in December alone, CBP confirms." - "The number of migrant encounters in December surpassed 250,000, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed on Friday -- marking a new high for the Biden-era border crisis as it enters its third year."

Make sure to bury that news in the Saturday paper, amirite?

Update (1/21) - Hot Air stole my headline: "Friday night news dump: Highest ever number of illegal migrant encounters recorded in December."

Furthermore, the story notes that burying this update is a pattern with the Biden administration:

It’s almost a running joke for those who keep an eye on when these numbers are released each month. Typically, the numbers are released sometime within the first ten days or so of a month. That changed as the Biden border crisis continued to grow worse. Each month, the release of the numbers happened a little later in the month. Now DHS releases the numbers during the late middle to end of the month, and always in a Friday evening news dump. This month was no different.

Yup.

Drip drip drip

Legal Insurrection: "Secret Service has a List of Regular Visitors to Biden’s Delaware Home That Stored Classified Documents - Now we learn the Secret Service collects “information on guests with regular access to the home.”

Twitchy: "WaPo: DOJ didn’t want to complicate classified docs investigation with ‘media feeding frenzy’."

Andrew McCarthy: "Biden's DoJ is grossly negligent in classified-doc search."

Jonathan Turley: "DOJ boosts Biden — but tarnishes itself — by letting his own lawyers search for classified docs."

Wasn't that nice of the Justice Department?  So much (D)eference. 

More timely stories surfacing!

Red State: "CNN Finally Reports on Biden Family Corruption, and Everyone Should Be Asking Why." - "The mainstream media has devolved into a bloated enterprise that simply copies the work of conservative outlets and publishes it two years later." 

What a timely resurfacing

NPR: "Biden's mishandling of documents is resurfacing the problem of 'overclassification'."

Siri, how do I know a Democrat is in the White House?

Very on-brand

Power Line: "Democrats try to criminalize free speech."  Because they hate it.

Geoengineering fiction becomes fact

Here's the plot of Neal Stephenson's 2021 novel "Termination Shock":

The book is about a solar geoengineering project conceived by a Texas oil-industry billionaire named T.R. Schmidt. Schmidt builds a launcher on the Texas-Mexico border to fire sulfur into the air, a form of stratospheric aerosol injection intended to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight into space. This technique replicates the effects of volcanic eruptions that inject sulfates into the atmosphere and produce global cooling, such as the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption.

Somebody is doing this now and nobody's quite sure what impact it will make:

An American startup firm has admitted to releasing reactive particles into the atmosphere in an attempt to alter the climate. The move has attracted widespread criticism, and marks a potentially dangerous new stage in the intensifying response to Earth’s “climate crisis”.

Just before Christmas 2022, the firm ‘Make Sunsets’ acknowledged it had launched weather balloons containing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The launches took place in April 2022, in Baja California, Mexico, months before the company was even incorporated.

When quizzed about it, the company’s CEO, Luke Iseman, was unrepentant. “It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this”, he said, adding that it’s important “to do this as quickly and safely as we can,” because of the threat of man-made climate change.

In the book, the Indian government sends a military squad to destroy the sulfur launching site because the monsoon period was delayed. 

Oh isn't that nice of them?

Wall Street Journal: "Justice Department Considered but Rejected Role in Biden Documents Search - Officials opted for hands-off approach to leave special counsel’s probe uncompromised"

The Justice Department considered having FBI agents monitor a search by President Biden’s lawyers for classified documents at his homes but decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, according to people familiar with the matter.

After Mr. Biden’s lawyers discovered documents marked as classified dating from his term as vice president at an office he used at a Washington-based think tank on Nov. 2, the Justice Department opened an inquiry into why and how they got there. Mr. Biden’s legal team prepared to search his other properties for any similar documents, and discussed with the Justice Department the prospect of having FBI agents present while Mr. Biden’s lawyers conducted the additional searches.

A White House correspondent today, suddenly discovering journalism, asked KJP why White House lawyers contacted the West Wing upon discovering classified documents instead of the Department of Justice.  Of course, she didn't answer.

Extra - Twitchy: "Karine Jean-Pierre breaks under the weight of more questions about Biden mishandling classified docs." 

Chuck Todd is the worst

Hot Air: "Chuck Todd isn't even trying to look like a journalist anymore." 

So begins the cover-up

Byron York: "The big problem with the Joe Biden documents story."

The biggest problem with the Joe Biden documents story is this: We know only what Joe Biden's lawyers have told us. And the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the case will make the problem worse.

No kidding: now every time Biden is asked about his Corvette storage issues, he can just say: "Oh, the Justice Department is looking into it."

Whoopsie! More documents

Twitchy: "Stephen L. Miller wonders why Team Biden’s classified doc search is still on the honor system." 

Of course

CNBC: "More classified documents found at Biden’s Delaware home, White House counsel says."

When's the FBI raid?  There are classified documents stuffed everywhere.

I'll believe it when I see it

This will be a short-lived feint towards credibility.  Hot Air: "Dem disaster: Media bailing on Biden in new scandal?"

The press agrees on one thing: Karine Jean-Pierre is a clown.

I dont care if you love or hate President Biden. . but Karine Jean-Pierre is a terrible press secretary. .

— Dan Abrams (@danabrams) January 12, 2023

Who are these "people," Joe?

Here's Biden on Tuesday:

Well, let me get rid of the easy one first. People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.

And today, citing the "Corvette standard" of security:

Q  So the material was in a locked garage?

 

THE PRESIDENT:  Yes, as well as my Corvette.

 

But as I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified material seriously.

Who are these "people" that believes Biden takes top secret material seriously?  Unsurprisingly, this is another false conceit that Biden arrogates upon himself.

You have to wonder if the Secret Service has been instructed to take a bullet for Joe Biden's ego.

Here's Andrew McCarthy: "As a New Batch of Classified Documents Emerges, Assessing Biden’s Statements about the First Batch."

Biden first did what he habitually does, which is to assert that “people know” some supposed attribute of his that, in fact, is neither an attribute of his nor believed by “people” to be one. In this instance, he said, “People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.” We don’t know any such thing. The most sensitive thing Biden is known to have handled in his long political career is the pullout from Afghanistan, an utter catastrophe of his own making. He is a notorious plagiarist and résumé inflater whose best-known trait is to say with brimming confidence things that are not only untrue but easily demonstrated to be untrue. Everything about him screams sloppy and erratic, which is why White House aides charged with damage control hold their breath every time he speaks. There is absolutely no reason to believe he is any more careful in his handling of classified intelligence than in his handling of anything else.

"How could anybody be so irresponsible?"  

What? Who saw this coming?

Breitbart: "Early Numbers Show Golden Globe Ratings Hit All-Time Low." 

Things suddenly coming to light

NBC News: "Biden aides find second batch of classified documents at new location."

Prediction: Biden won't have a solo press conference this year.

Nuclear launch codes

That's how this works, right?  We just assume they're nuclear launch codes until the truth can be quietly reported several months later.

Fox News: "Biden 'surprised' to learn of classified docs at Penn think tank: 'I don't know' what's in them."

They're classified nuclear launch codes, Joe, and kickback receipts from Ukraine for Hunter's phony-baloney sinecure.  

CNN gonna CNN

Twitchy: "CNN: Biden’s classified documents are ‘a new line of attack’ that fell into Republicans’ laps."

The predictable "Republicans pounce." 

Enjoy your new precedent

Don Surber: "McCarthy cleans House."

Kevin McCarthy kicked Ilhan Omar, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off powerful committees, just as he said he would do in November. The move comes two years after Pelosi banned Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from all committees.

Paybacks aren't a bitch. Pelosi is.

He bounced Swalwell and Schiff from the intelligence committee and barred Omar from the foreign affairs committee. Swalwell slept with Fang Fang, a spy for Red China.

It used to be up to the minority leader to bounce his/her own members but Nancy Pelosi broke that standard.  Ed Driscoll notes: "As with Harry Reid and the filibuster, why do Democrats think the rules they change won’t apply to them when they’re the party out of power?"

Justice Gorsuch says "hi" from the Supreme Court.

Fake news

CBS News: "U.S. attorney reviewing documents marked classified from Joe Biden's vice presidency found at Biden think tank."

You know this is phony because the words "Biden" and "think" are next to each other. 

Man gives hundredth interview whining about loss of privacy

Ace: "Harry Markle Will Be Excluded from Charles' Coronation After Continuing Attacks on Royal Family Made in Quickie Cash-In Book, Spare."

It's been said that a true friend will tell you what you don't want to hear.  I don't think Prince Harry has a single friend to pull him aside and tell him how self-destructive his behavior is in the eyes of the world.

Save your money, Harry.  This book deal will be your last cash cow.

The Left hates free speech - Schiff edition

Jonathan Turley: "“We Don’t Do This”: Adam Schiff and the Underbelly of American Censorship." - "Rather than simply refute the allegation, Schiff wanted Sperry and other critics silenced. His office reportedly laid out steps to cleanse Twitter of their criticism, including an instruction to “remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service — to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content." 

Kabuki theater

Washington Examiner: "Biden’s Potemkin trip to the southern border"

Days before President Joe Biden visited El Paso, Texas, this afternoon, local and federal authorities began clearing out migrant encampments. Federal agents said this was a response to community complaints of rising crime, but it is more likely that the president's impending visit and the need to avoid embarrassing photos was decisive.

Biden will learn nothing from his trip because he doesn’t want to learn anything.

As I've noted before, Biden doesn't take any responsibility for the border crisis.  As long as he can continue to blame Republicans, Biden can absolve himself of all transgressions.  It's his go-to move.

Evergreen:

The hardest working man in Washington

After a week's vacation in St. Croix, Joe Biden held exactly two public events this past week, before heading back to Delaware today. 

Flashback: "KJP: I can't even keep up with that ageless dynamo in the Oval Office, or something."

McCarthy elected Speaker of the House

PJ Media: "Kevin McCarthy Elected 55th Speaker of the House. Here's How It Went Down."

I like all the concessions he agreed to including spending caps and hard line on the debt ceiling.  Our national debt is utterly out of control in the wake of covid.

He looks terrible

I don't know if Joe Biden is getting over a cold or something but he looked like death warmed over during his speech on border security today.  Legal Insurrection: "Biden Proves He Knows Nothing About the Border or Immigration in a Rambling Speech - He doesn’t know what CBP stands for, called Vice President Kamala Harris “President Harris,” thought you could replace Title 42 with Title 8, and said 20,000lbs of fentanyl could only kill 1,000 people." 

Every speech that Brandon gives is a self-indulgent ego stroke.  Yesterday he gave a speech on infrastructure which was a non-stop "I am a generous God!" farrago.  Today he needed to address the worst border crisis in America's history and, dontcha know, it's all the Republicans' fault.  When Joey can't blame somebody else for a disaster - like Afghanistan - he just pretends it went great.

Desperate Afghans falling from U.S. Military planes?  Gosh, that was four or five days ago!  Sheesh.

Good

Wall Street Journal: "Public Schools Lost More Than One Million Students During Pandemic."

Declining birthrates, a rise in home schooling and growing competition from private and charter schools are contributing to the decline in traditional public-school enrollment, according to school officials.

Huh, it's almost like - when given the opportunity - Americans are choosing schools they think will provide better outcomes for their children.

Joey's first day back at work in 2023

Biden: "I’ll paraphrase the phrase of my old neighborhood: The rest of the countries, the world is not a patch in our jeans, if we do what we wanna do, we need to do." pic.twitter.com/s9XccTkQpw

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 4, 2023

Yeah, it's a mystery

Twitchy: "President Biden lets us know why the economy ‘got so bad 2 years ago’." 

The man who's always wrong

Legal Insurrection: "CBS Lets Humanity-Hating Curmudgeon Paul Ehrlich Spew More Climate Panic Inanity."

See: the Simon-Ehrlich wager. 

NPR is a left-wing outfit

Looking for even-handed commentary on National Public Radio?  Well, they run the full gamut of opinion from liberal to Communist.  Washington Examiner: "National Progressive Radio strikes again."

NPR’s Morning Edition ran a segment on Monday that perfectly encapsulated the broadcaster’s left-wing assumptions, its determination to spread them, the contemptuous betrayal of its mission to represent varied views, and its modus operandi camouflaging propaganda as news.

It’s worth documenting periodically lest we forget that this bias and lack of intellectual curiosity offers a skewed view of important issues and derogates what the national broadcaster is for. We should not sink into oblivious resignation. The segment, from national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, concerned President Joe Biden outpacing his predecessors in appointing judges and, in doing so, reshaping the federal bench. It’s a vital subject on which a news organization with pretensions to public service (using taxpayer money it describes as "essential" to operations) has a duty to be balanced. Instead, all four people quoted in the piece were from the Left and pursued the same narrative. Two were Biden employees.

You would expect nothing less than the crew that found racism in the Beatles.

Scratch a liberal, find a tyrant

Red State: "Amy Klobuchar Doubling Down on Dems' Scary Efforts to Suppress Your Speech."

Very on-brand.

Shut up, they explained - college edition

Daily Caller: "Colleges — And Students — Took An Axe To Free Speech In 2022. Here Are Some Of The Worst Examples."