Category: Comment O’ The Day

Comment O’ The Day

“As Rush was fond of saying, we have some of the stupidest smart people in positions of power in this country (and frankly around the world).
Our Elite: supremely confident that they are the most intelligent people ever to have existed, and that no one should question their decisions or pronouncements, yet proving every day that they are literally dumb as rocks. Over-credentialed, and under-introspective.”

Observation O’ The Day

Confirmed — The Supreme Court’s Lib Justices Are Paste-Eaters.

“Well, now we know why the Democrats are so eager to pack the Supreme Court with more liberal judges. They’re going to need at least three more lefties on the Court just to get the collective IQ of the lib justices into triple digits.”

Comment O’ The Day
Taibbi has a point. Politicians can falsely claim to be a climate, crime, or economics expert and the average voter isn’t going to offer stiff resistance to that claim. But if a politician claims high school graduation shouldn’t depend upon proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic you are going to get their attention. It’s something everyone capable of reading is going to have a fair amount of expertise in. And the ruination of our education system has reached the point where it’s impossible to ignore.
The remarkable thing is that when called out on this the politicians don’t admit they were wrong. They double down.

The Democrats’ Education Lunacies Will Bring Back Trump
Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia governor’s race by saying, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach.” If that was no gaffe, Democrats have a lot more significant losing ahead.

(it was no gaffe. It was a ‘freudian slip’ where you inadvertently tell a truth about yourself you wanted kept concealed)

On Meet the Press Daily last week, Chuck Todd featured a small item about the 23 Democrats not planning on running for re-reelection to congress next year. Todd guessed such a high number expressed a lack of confidence in next year’s midterms, and his guest, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, agreed. “This is just another indicator that Democrats will probably have a bad year in 2022,” said Sabato, adding, “They only have a majority of five. It’s pretty tough to see how they hold on.”

On the full Meet the Press Sunday, Todd in an ostensibly unrelated segment interviewed 1619 Project author and New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones about Republican efforts in some states to ban teaching of her work. He detoured to ask about the Virginia governor’s race, which seemingly was decided on the question, “How influential should parents be about curriculum?” Given that Democrats lost Virginia after candidate Terry McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach,” Todd asked her, “How do we do this?”

Hannah-Jones’s first answer was to chide Todd for not remembering that Virginia was lost not because of whatever unimportant thing he’d just said, but because of a “right-wing propaganda campaign that told white parents to fight against their children being indoctrinated.”
This was standard pundit fare that for the millionth time showed a national media figure ignoring, say, the objections of Asian immigrant parents to Virginia policies, but whatever: her next response was more notable. “I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught,” Hannah-Jones said. “I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science.”

I’m against bills like the proposed Oklahoma measure that would ban the teaching of Jones’s work at all state-sponsored educational institutions. I think bans are counter-productive and politically a terrible move by Republicans, who undercut their own arguments against authoritarianism and in favor of “local control” with such sweeping statewide measures. Still, it was pretty rich hearing the author of The 1619 Project say she lacked the expertise to teach, given that a) many historians agree with her there, yet b) she’s been advocating for schools to teach her dubious work to students all over the country.

Even odder were her next comments, regarding McAuliffe’s infamous line about parents. About this, Hannah-Jones said:

We send our kids to school because we want our kids to be taught by people with expertise in the subject area… When the governor, or the candidate, said he didn’t think parents should be deciding what’s being taught in school, he was panned for that, but that’s just a fact.

In the wake of McAuliffe’s loss, the “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach” line was universally tabbed a “gaffe” by media. I described it in the recent “Loudoun County: A Culture War in Four Acts” series in TK as the political equivalent of using a toe to shoot your face off with a shotgun, but this was actually behind the news cycle. Yahoo! said the “gaffe precipitated the Democrat’s slide in the polls,” while the Daily Beast’s blunter headline was, “Terry McAuliffe’s White-Guy Confidence Just Fucked the Dems.”

However, much like the Hillary Clinton quote about “deplorables,” conventional wisdom after the “gaffe” soon hardened around the idea that what McAuliffe said wasn’t wrong at all. In fact, people like Hannah-Jones are now doubling down and applying to education the same formula that Democrats brought with disastrous results to a whole range of other issues in the Trump years, telling voters that they should get over themselves and learn to defer to “experts” and “expertise.”

Continue reading “”

Comment O’ The Day
If the environment is more favorable for criminal activity (no cash bail, cheering on property destruction, refusal to prosecute, defunding police, etc.), it should come as no surprise that there will be an increase in demand for guns, both from criminals who seek to exploit the favorable conditions for their endeavors and also from law-abiding citizens who seek to defend themselves from lawlessness.

Only any idiot would think this is a chicken/egg paradox

The Paradox of the 2020 Gun-Sales Spike

In a City Journal piece over the summer, I cast some doubt on the idea that 2020’s massive homicide spike — a 30 percent increase — had been driven by strong gun sales. America has so many guns that even a really strong year for sales doesn’t boost the supply that much, and most crime guns tend to be fairly old anyway.

Most interestingly, places with the biggest gun-sales spikes didn’t also have the biggest shooting spikes, according to a then-new study in Injury Prevention. I further noted, however, some NYPD numbers suggesting that while guns purchased less than a year ago accounted for 10 percent of crime-gun traces in 2019, they were 18 percent in 2020. 

Now we have national data to update both the geographic and the gun-trace findings. Oddly enough, they both hold up. Comparing all of 2020 with all of 2019, the states with the biggest gun-sales spikes were not the same as the states with the biggest homicide spikes. But nationwide, new guns did show up quite a bit more in police departments’ gun traces. 

Here’s a simple, per capita way of comparing changes in homicide rates with changes in gun sales (as measured via background checks for gun purchases, with a few states with quirky data excluded). There’s no obvious connection between the two, and the picture is the same when you plot the percentage change in one variable against the percentage change in the other.


The new trace data, however, are less kind to the latest additions to America’s gun stock. In 2019, about 20 percent of traced guns had been purchased less than a year prior; in 2020, this rose to about 30 percent. (The Trace has some more ways of cutting these numbers here, as does my colleague Charles Fain Lehman here.)  Continue reading “”

Comment O’ The Day

It’s hard to have a lot of sympathy for Californians, given that they overwhelmingly voted to retain the status quo just a few months ago.

Comment O’ The Day
I’m not actually sure that a nation of people who own nothing will be as easy to control as the powers that be seem to believe.

Own Nothing and Love It
An unholy alliance of planners, financiers, and leftists wants everyone to live in mass social housing developments.

From the ancient world to modern times, the class of small property owners have constituted the sine qua non of democratic self-government. But today this class is under attack by what Aristotle described as an oligarchia, an unelected power elite that controls the political economy for its own purposes. In contrast, the rise of small holders were critical to the re-emergence and growth of democracy first in the Netherlands, followed by North America, Australia, and much of Europe.

Today the current class of small holders face a threat from two powerful hegemonies, tech and financial interests, and increasingly intrusive bureaucracies. Both favor policies that would force higher population densities, which would likely raise housing costs and lead to lifetime renting for middle income households who would otherwise own their own homes. These forces—one long associated with the right, and the other the left—share a common agenda, though for different reasons.

Financial interests would reap a steady profit stream by creating a “rentership society,” where potential owners are transformed into tenants, guaranteeing the benefits of increasing land values. Today pension funds and Wall Street firms are buying up single family homes, often at prices too high for the average buyer. For their part, the planning clerisy believes that dense urbanism is socially, economically, and environmentally superior; some even favor a return to public housing, which not long ago lost was rejected as a massively failed experiment.

Continue reading “”

Comments O’ The Day

It would be awesome if nothing happened in Kenosha, proving again online outrage isn’t the real world.

Given the precedent, I suspect some folks will not risk instigating crimes of violence and intimidation owing the chance of getting shot. “It’s gettin’ real, folks.”

Comment O’ The Day

There seems to be a number of left of center “moderates” who have watched the trial and come to the inescapable conclusion that the media and Democrat politicians are nothing but liars and everything they were told to think about Rittenhouse was wrong. And not just about the Rittenhouse trial.

It’s the media and the administration saying everything is fine and inflation is good, even while the people hearing this are bring squeezed so hard it hurts.

The elites and activists on the Left are incapable of putting the truth over the narrative. And clearly the absolute disconnect between what the talking heads say and what they saw in the trial has been part of that awakening.

Kyle is suffering and I hope him nothing but the best, but his suffering has ripped the wool from the eyes of normies and for that sacrifice I thank him.

Comment O’ The Day;
Its funny how there exists a clip of him contradicting himself on virtually every single point he’s ever made as president thus far.

In August of 2007…………

 

Comment O’ The Day
I will once again say: this whole Dem tactic of “Americans just don’t understand” doesn’t hold water when the guy saying it can’t properly read the teleprompter

Biden Accused Of Mocking Americans’ Intellect: ‘You Think They’d Understand What We’re Talking About?’

President Joe Biden was accused of mocking Americans’ intelligence on Saturday during remarks that he gave in the morning as he answered only a few questions from reporters.

Biden made the remarks about Americans’ knowledge of supply chains as he said that the pandemic has impacted the lives of every American.

Observation O’ The Day

Elderly people with failing memories often fall back on those sweet memories of the good old days:

 

Comment O’ The Day
Remember..
The Marxists have two main goals:
1. Destroying America
2. Replace her with a China style techno-fascist state.
Gotta see the big picture folks.
The Marxist Dems intend these results of their policies.

Businesses Leave and Crime Increases While Massachusetts Legislators Pass More Gun Control Laws.

A new study confirms Massachusetts gun control laws achieved “no effect” on reducing violent crime even though legislators promised they would.

Politicians earn support by promising constituents they’ll focus on a few key issues and delivering results. Antigun lawmakers in the Bay State achieved a rare trifecta-failure by curtailing voters’ Constitutional rights, eliminating hundreds of jobs and failing to make a dent on violent crime and enhancing public safety.

Predictable Results

Nearly 600 members of the public attended a July 2014 Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security on a massive gun control expansion considered by the legislature. Oddly, the proposal sought to ban modern sporting rifles (MSRs) that the state already banned in 1998. It also included a provision to implement rules allowing law enforcement to decide “may issue,” “suitability standards” regarding who can purchase not only handguns, but also shotguns and rifles, regardless of whether the buyer passes a NICS background check.

A month later, then-Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick signed the bill and Massachusetts House Speaker Democrat Robert DeLeo praised it, saying the package will “make Massachusetts one of the safest places in the world.”

At the time, Bay State Republican and Second Amendment advocate Rep. George Peterson said of the gun control package, he “didn’t find anything that will have an appreciable effect on gun violence. These are more restrictions on lawful gun owners.”

A new 2021 deep-dive study by researchers at American University proved Rep. Peterson clairvoyant, concluding that the gun control package has “not reduced gun violence and gun crime at all in Massachusetts.”

Continue reading “”

Comment O’ The Day
Imagine if Nicole Wallace actually believes that junk? Is it worse to be a paranoid moron or a pure opportunistic liar? I really don’t know–but either way it is bad–but I think I prefer stupidity over evil–although I am not sure.

Comment O’ The Day

Yes, yes, more!!! I feel terrible for this woman and her daughter but every single normie who voted for Biden because of Trump’s mean Tweets need to see up close and personal what the Left is really like.
No compassion, no civility, just constant aggressive political churning all of the time.
The need their noses rubbed in it like a puppy who pooped on the floor.

Comment O’ The Day

Flight-ER-Doc says:
October 23, 2021 at 7:18 am

I am a physician. The Hippocratic oath is not a law.

However, HIPAA is, and requires at a minimum a medical screening exam, and whatever medical stabilization of an existing condition is required.

Also, stealing a phone like that is a misdemeanor, and assaulting mom is potentially a felony.

May be just me, but it appears everybody is pointing their fingers at everybody else trying to throw them ‘under the bus’.

Comment O’ The Day:
As soon as Nancy Pelosi contacted General Milley about nuclear weapon procedures, he should have politely referred her to the Secretary of Defense and immediately reported the call to his boss,[actually that’s the President, and then to ] the SecDef. 

Because of civilian control over the military, the decision to employ WMDs is a political decision… the military carries out the orders. Therefore, Pelosi as a civilian should only be talking to DoD civilians about defense procedures.

She was WAY out of line making the call, and Milley was derelict in answering her questions.

Milley Details Nancy Pelosi’s Attempt to Take Over the Chain-of-Command

During his opening statement in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday morning, General Mark Milley denied inappropriate phone calls with the Chinese military and tried to reassure Americans he is dedicated to civilian control of the military.

“I am specifically directed to communicate with the Chinese. These military to military communications at the highest level are critical to the security of the United States,” Milley said. “My loyalty to this Nation, its people, and the Constitution hasn’t changed, and will never change, as long as I have a breath to give. My loyalty is absolute, and I will not turn my back on the fallen.”

“I firmly believe in civilian control of the military,” he continued.

Milley also stressed that he does not believe President Donald Trump planned to attack the Chinese in the final days of his presidency.

In his remarks, Milley also addressed a phone call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on January 8, 2021, in which she pressed him about the process to launch a nuclear weapon. Milley says he informed her that while launching such a weapon requires multiple people in the chain of command, the president is the sole authority to launch an attack.

“Speaker of the House Pelosi called me to inquire about the president’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. I sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process. She was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the president [President Trump]. I explained to her the president is the sole nuclear launch authority and he doesn’t launch them alone and that I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the President of the United States,” Milley said. “There are processes, protocols and procedures in place and I repeatedly assured her there was no chance of an illegal, unauthorized or accidental launch. By presidential directive, and Secretary of Defense directive, the chairman is part of the process to ensure the president is fully informed when determining the use of the world’s deadliest weapons. By law, I’m not in the chain of command and I know that. However, by presidential directive and DOD instruction, I am in the chain of communication to fulfill my legal, statutory role as the president’s primary military advisor.”

Milley said after the call from Pelosi, he convened a meeting with his staff to go through the process and procedures. He also told Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Miller about Pelosi’s call.

“At no time was I trying to change or influence the process, usurp authority or insert myself in the chain-of-command,” Milley said.

Comment O’ The Day

The densest element yet known to science has been named Pelosium.
Pelosium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311.
These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

The symbol of Pelosium is PU.

Pelosium’s mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons within the Pelosium molecule, leading to the formation of isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientist to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.
When catalyzed with money, Pelosium activates CNNadnausium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons as Pelosium.

Comment O’ The Day

I remember when all the best people were ready to turn America upside down over nonexistent Russian collusion claims.

Probable Chinese spies claim ‘Raycissss!’

Stanford professors ask DOJ to stop looking for Chinese spies at universities in US.

While acknowledging that is important for the U.S. to address concerns of intellectual property theft and economic espionage, the Stanford educators wrote in their letter that the program has since “deviated significantly from its claimed mission.”

The professors stated that the China Initiative is “harming the United States’ research and technology competitiveness and it is fueling biases that, in turn, raise concerns about racial profiling.”

They pointed out that the program disproportionately targets researchers with Chinese origins, choosing to investigate them not based on evidence but simply for having a connection to China.

The program was started in 2018 to combat Chinese espionage but has since been criticized for investigating Asian individuals falsely accused of committing crimes.

“In many cases the federal response seems disproportionate and inappropriate. In some cases, federal agents associated with the China Initiative have prosecuted researchers without solid evidence,” the professors wrote. “Moreover, racial profiling – even when undertaken in pursuit of justice – is both inconsistent with U.S. law and with the principles underlying our society.”