Read it.

Neil Young, who now looks more decrepit than Joe Biden, was once a channel projecting the cultural confidence to declare himself a seeker for a heart of gold. Now he takes a stand on behalf of Big Pharma, pseudo-scientific hygienic mandates, and the unquestioned authority of the state against a podcaster who offers conversation and consideration of received wisdom.

 

Read it.

In January, the networks went silent on Critical Race Theory in schools. It’s role in education was not mentioned on any of the network morning or evening shows.

But if you think the threat of CRT is gone, you are sadly mistaken. For much of last year, especially as Virginia prepared for a governor’s election with CRT being a focal point, ABC, CBS and NBC repeatedly told us that it was “not taught in schools.”

But January brought us “Privilege Bingo.” That’s right, Fairfax County, Virginia public schools apologized after students were forced to play this vile game in order to “identify your privilege.” The twisted version of Bingo included “white,” “male,” “Christian,” “cisgender.” In a new low, it also had a space marked “military kid.”

Exclusive: Newly obtained records show Trump and Jim Jordan spoke at length on morning of January 6 (CNN) How nefarious.

Jim Jordan ‘Trying to Hide’ Something on 1/6 Trump Call, Suggests McGovern (Newsweek)

Donald Trump Supporters Tricked Into Backing Bible Ban in Schools in Prank Video (Newsweek) How juvenile.

Trump’s January 6 pardon pledge baffles some attorneys (CNN) Perhaps because he made no such ‘pledge’.

MSNBC’s Cross Says Russia Threatening Ukraine Because Trump Undermined Democracy!

More than 1k Dutch residents plan to throw rotten eggs at Jeff Bezos’ superyacht  Just because.

The Fed is about to raise interest rates and shaft American workers – again (The Guardian) Robert Reich

‘Dismantling Democracy’ to save it: How Democrats rediscovered the joys of rigging elections (The Hill) Jonathan Turley.

Obama, Holder slam GOP states for gerrymandering, but silent as Democrats do the same thing

California liberals seethe after Democratic legislature kills single-payer (Politico)

A San Francisco sixth-grader was enrolled at a public middle school but never showed up. She got A’s anyway (San Francisco Chronicle) Schools get Federal money for every student they have enrolled. Hence they are highly motivated to cheat.

CNN’s Cillizza Hails Dem ‘Redistricting’; Earlier Denounced GOP ‘Gerrymandering’

200,000 Black men fought in the Civil War. Some lawmakers want to give them the Congressional Gold Medal. (Washington Post) Some black lawmakers. 160 years isn’t too old for virtue-signaling.

Black Republican excluded from Black Caucus of Virginia legislature  Guess he wasn’t black enough.

Marilyn Mosby’s reckoning

Have You Heard of ‘The CROWN Act’?

Read it.

Having failed to sufficiently capitalize on mass shootings and other gun violence, Democrats are now supporting an end-run effort to cripple manufacturers and distributors of firearms by challenging their existing immunity from lawsuits, and then seeking to hold them liable for crimes committed with their products.

The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and the Omicron variant (CNN)

As Pfizer vaccine for kids under 5 nears authorization, parents weigh risks (Komono News)

Canadian trucker on ‘America’s Newsroom’: We’re not giving in until mandates are gone

Canadian premier calls truckers protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandate an ‘occupation’ (The Hill) Occupy Ottowa?

Observational analysis of nucleocapsid and spike antibody responses post-SARS-CoV-2 infection (News-Medical)

Inhaled Nitric Oxide Can Kill COVID-Causing Coronavirus, Prevent Its Attachment to Human Cells: Indian Researchers (Weather.com)

As Omicron peaks, the US healthcare system is left ‘broken beyond repair’ (The Guardian) Although not nearly as broken as Britain’s NHS.

Coronavirus FAQ: My drugstore now offers antibody tests. Is it worth getting one? (NPR)

Covid Rule Sceptics & the Countryside Alliance: Different Battles, Same War?

CCP Builds “Southern Great Wall” To Seal Off Border And Stop COVID

‘You Are on the Losing Side of History’: Meet Mom Fighting Schools’ Mask Mandates

A Record Number Of Robots Joined American Workforce In 2021 Amid COVID Labor Crunch  Thank you, minimum wage.

Read it.

Despite initially refusing to cave to pressure from Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and his allies, GoFundMe announced late Friday evening that it had decided not to disburse any more money to the “Freedom Convoy” and its supporters gathered in Coutts, Alberta and Ottawa. Users will now need to request a refund of their donation, or risk the possibility that the company will instead reroute it to an “approved” charity.

SFPD chief refuses to work with DA Boudin, accuses him of ‘concealing’ evidence to hurt police

House Democrats Sneak Pro-Union Measure Into Anti-China Bill

Christian MP goes on trial in Finland for calling homosexuality a disorder

Washington/Seattle Dystopia, Chapter Two

New York City Public Schools Go Vegan on Fridays

Virginia Democrats Block Black Republican From Joining Black Caucus

Behar Defends Pelosi Warning U.S. Athletes Not to Protest China’s Abuses

Los Angeles Times Slams ‘Vitriol in Politics’—After Hiring Vitriolic Columnists

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

One of the fun parts of studying the ancient world, even for an amateur, is that you see that the problems of the human condition are immutable. The issues we face today have new characteristics, but they are not new to man. The Ancients had the same sorts of problems because they had the same sorts of people. Then as now, there were people who lived to create trouble. There have always been people nibbling at the support cables of society, hoping for disaster.

Of course, the Ancients could not afford to indulge their fantasies about themselves or the world, so their solutions were to the point. An office holder who betrayed his duty to the office was forced to commit suicide. People who committed crimes, even small crimes, faced rough judgment. Much of what ails the modern age is the unwillingness to deal with the problems of society. As a result, they have metastasized to the point where they seem intractable.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

San Francisco Police Chief cuts ties with DA Chesa Boudin over police shooting investigations

‘The View’ criticizes Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch instead of addressing Whoopi Goldberg suspension

Leaked messages reveal New York Times’ aggressive anti-union strategy

US truckers slam Facebook for removing page organizing DC freedom convoy: ‘Censorship at its finest’

GoFundMe freezes Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ page after it raises $10 million

ACLU Sues Texas for Deeming Some U.S. Voters ‘Non-Citizens’  (Newsweek)

Copycat US trucker convoy silenced on social media

Marc Elias Makes Millions Off Democratic Gerrymandering Efforts

Scarborough Rushes to Feel Putin’s Pain, Paints Ukraine as Potential Aggressor!

Maryland County That Removed Police from Schools Asks Them To Return Indefinitely

No Surprise: Study Finds Enhanced Jobless Benefits Prolong Unemployment

Carjackings Up 200% in DC

Pelosi Warns Olympic Athletes Not To Anger Chinese Government

CNNers Show CREEPY Devotion to ‘Remarkable’ Jeff Zucker With Soviet-Like Tributes

When Michigan Became COVID Hotspot, Whitmer Fled for Hollywood Fundraisers

Orwellian! ADL Changes ‘Racism’ Definition After Whoopi Goldberg Controversy

Read it.

We have heard of cases where adult patients in the US have been denied a life-saving heart transplant because they hadn’t been vaccinated. But have you ever heard of a child being refused because their parents had been vaccinated?

Well, now we have: Politico EU reports that a 3-year-old Cypriot boy was denied a heart transplant by a hospital in Germany allegedly because his parents weren’t “fully vaccinated”.

And it wasn’t just Germany. The boy was turned away by hospitals in the UK and Israel for the same reason. Finally, a Greek hospital was found to do the transplant, but the story is going viral anyway as the latest example of COVID restrictions run amok.

The Antiplanner blows the whistle.

Portland’s housing prices aren’t as high as San Francisco’s, but they are still too high. As indicated Tuesday, median home prices are more than five times median family incomes, which makes housing unaffordable because under standard mortgage rules it’s not possible to get a loan for five times someone’s income.

…

Unlike California’s urban-growth boundaries, which are frozen in time, Oregon’s are supposed to grow to meet future housing needs. But in 1993 the state and region decided to meet future housing needs by upzoning existing neighborhoods to higher densities instead of expanding the boundaries.

CNN’s Brian Stelter roasted for complaining about Americans trusting Joe Rogan over his own network

California Single-Payer Health Care Bill Dies In State Assembly  Guess they didn’t pay off the right people.

Coping with the Trauma of Free Speech

Facebook Replaces All Text Fields With Dropdown Menu Of Approved Things You Can Say  Babylon Bee.

San Francisco Residents Flocking To Montana As Demand Has “Exploded”

8 Problems With San Jose’s Gun Insurance Mandate and Gun Ownership Tax

‘Someone Opened The Doors From The Inside,’ Jan. 6 Defense Attorney Says  It was a ‘Reichstag fire’ setup all along.

YouTube’s new censorship tactic is to limit streams that are too popular

Losing The War On Wokeness: Washington Football Team Officially Changes Its Name To “Commanders”  I was hoping they’d go all the way and call themselves the Washington Generals.

PayPal Crashes Most On Record After Shutting Millions Of “Bad Actor” Accounts, Abandons Long-Term User Goal

Schools Conspire With Outside Groups Behind Parents’ Backs to Counsel Kids on Myriad Gender Choices

Limousine Liberal? Klobuchar Spent $6K on Beverly Hilton Stay, Limo Service for Hollywood Fundraiser

NewsGuard Rates OANN, Newsmax, LifeNews Less Credible than Chinese State-Run Media

Soros Prosecutor Under Fire for Mishandling Child Endangerment, Domestic Abuse Cases

REMINDER: CNN Is a Clown Network Run By Creeps

Ottawa City Councillor Demands Government Seize $7 Million Raised By Canadian Truckers

Read it.

We have the technology.

Read it.

If asked, most Americans probably believe the U.S. and Russia are pretty evenly matched on nuclear weapons due to arms control treaties such as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—aka New START.

That’s not exactly correct.

Indeed, with Russia threatening a large-scale invasion of Ukraine at any moment, now is a good time to take note of a little-spoken-of, but glaring, imbalance in our nuclear arsenals—and how it could affect our interests in Europe.

While the U.S. and Russia have a similar number of deployed strategic (i.e., high-yield) nuclear weapons as limited under New START, Russia has a 10:1 advantage over us in non-strategic (i.e., low-yield) nuclear weapons—aka tactical or battlefield nukes.

Yes, you read that right: A 10:1 advantage.

ZMan is not optimistic.

In January, The New Criterion organized a symposium around the topic of the changes in the conservative movement. They invited several writers to respond to the main essay written by Kim R. Holmes, the former Executive Vice President of The Heritage Foundation and former Assistant Secretary of State in the G. W. Bush Administration. The respondents are Ryan T. Anderson, Josh Hammer, Charles R. Kesler, Daniel J. Mahoney, James Piereson, Robert R. Reilly, and R. R. Reno.

Now, if this were a boxing match, it would have been called in the second response to Holmes, written by Josh Hammer, a member of Yoram Hazony’s National Conservatism movement. Hammer offers a lengthy critique of conservatism but the subtext is a bit of inescapable reality. The conservative movement, whatever its intensions, was a complete failure. It conserved nothing. In fact, it may be the biggest failure in the history of political movements.

Shoplifting kills a Rite Aid — and maybe Manhattan’s comeback chances

Youngkin sparks Democratic backlash in Virginia (The Hill) Oh, ya think?

Composting 101: How to figure out what’s happening in your community (L.A. Times) Dealing with California’s new Food Waste Rules.

Democracy remains under threat. Here is one thing that Congress still might do. (Washington Post) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

Just how imperiled is America’s democracy? A Q&A with the Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman. (CNN) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

MSNBC: Decrease Big City Crime Waves, But Don’t Be Like Rudy Giuliani!

Scientific tyranny has captured America

If Unrest Soars In America Will Looters Be Shot?  Sometimes the old ways are best.

Washington Dem Breaks Campaign Promise, Takes Cash From Pelosi

Waymo sues California’s DMV to block autonomous car crash data from publication

BBC censors its own archives

Big Tech SMASHED Records, Spent $55M on Lobbying Last Year

‘It Could Get a Lot Worse’: Dem Super PAC Unveils Midterm Messaging Strategy

Uyghurs Call For Viewer Boycott of ‘Genocide’ Olympics; NYT Aids China’s Propaganda

Nancy Pelosi’s Son Becomes Subject Of Sixth FBI Investigation

Federally Funded Cultural Institutions Partner With Chinese Embassy

The Antiplanner pointedly refrains from saying I Told You So.

Just when the infrastructure issue seemed to be settled for awhile, the failure of the 52-year-old Fern Hollow bridge in Pittsburgh has reawakened it, especially as the collapse took place just a few hours before President Biden was scheduled to speak in Pittsburgh. “I hope it’s a wake-up call to the nation that we need to make these infrastructure investments,” Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman told local reporters.

No one yet knows why the bridge collapsed, but numerous media reports say that it was rated to be in poor condition. Inspection reports reveal, however, that the part of the bridge in poor condition was its superstructure while its substructure was considered “satisfactory.” Bad substructure may cause a bridge to collapse, but not, generally, bad superstructure. A 2017 inspection concluded that the bridge “meets minimum tolerable limits to be left in place as is.” As a result, the bridge wasn’t scheduled to be repaired or replaced under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The bridge collapsed between 6 am and 7 am on Friday as it was being crossed by an articulated 60-seat bus. These buses weigh a little more than 20 tons, which should not have been enough to collapse the bridge. The good new is hardly anyone rides transit anymore, so this 56-seat bus was occupied by just two passengers and the driver. Several automobiles were also on the bridge when it collapsed. A few people were hospitalized, but none with life-threatening injuries.

Border agents slam Biden migrant flights during visit from Raul Ortiz, Alejandro Mayorkas

Border Patrol agents get into heated exchange with leadership during Mayorkas visit, leaked video shows

Progressive Dems Distance Themselves As Biden Turns Radioactive

Biden Promises To Replace Retiring Quarterback Tom Brady With A Woman Of Color  Babylon Bee.

Trouble in Paradise: ABC Leads with Poll Showing Disastrous Numbers for Biden Agenda

‘Air Biden’: Midnight Flights Bring Illegals From Border, and It’s ‘Racist’ to Notice

Here’s Why US Truckers Staging Convoy To DC Will Face Soaring Diesel Prices

Biden’s Bad Bet on Race

How we ended up with the ‘Pregnant Man’ Emoji

California city named for Confederate general declines to change name

LA area city council member pushes to ditch liberal DA because he’s ‘not doing his job’

Less Than Half Of Americans Trust Business “To Do The Right Thing”  Gee, I wonder why?

The Unnatural Herstory Museum

Noisy In Boise: NPR Airs Badly Disguised Abortion Infomercial from Idaho

Tolerance for Risk May Contribute to Gender Pay Gap

WaPo: the Next Normal: States Will Recognize Multiparent Families

One Georgia school system will hand MacBook Air or iPad to every student  Many of whom will sell them and then claim that they were lost or stolen so as to receive a new one. (Doughtery County in Georgia is 69% black.) Rinse, repeat.

Bill Maher Fires Back At Those Who Say His Politics Have Changed, Blames Looney Left Policies

‘Be thankful you don’t have our poison’: US pollster Frank Luntz’s warning to UK (The Guardian)

Why are so many San Franciscans moving to Montana? (San Francisco Chronicle)

Jim Acosta’s foray into CNN’s primetime lineup struggles to attract viewers

Democrats Clarify They’re Only Pro-Choice About Killing Kids, Not About Where They Attend School  Babylon Bee.

‘Life’s a Mitch,’ Acosta Whines About ‘Hard-Right’ Supreme Court

Soros Dark Money Helps Fund 23 Leftist DAs to the Tune of $29M

It’s Not Government’s Job to ‘Root Out’ Misinformation

Trudeau Claims Truckers Only Hate Him Because He’s Black  Babylon Bee.

PolitiFact Bungles ‘Mostly False’ Claim on Winsome Sears and CRT, Refuses to Budge

Meet Alvin Bragg, Rogue Prosecutor Whose Policies Are Wreaking Havoc in Manhattan

Lax Prosecution Contributing To LA Cargo Theft Surge, Experts Say

George Soros Pledges ‘Unprecedented’ $125 Million To Help Democrats Win In November

The Fight Over What Children Learn

Signs of Dystopia in the Seattle area

Instagram Bans Healthy Eating Ads for Promoting ‘Negative Self-Perception’

New Jersey And New York Ranked ‘Worst States To Retire’

Read it.

Green mechanical climate salvation schemes have killed whales, paralysed crabs, murdered entire forests and incinerated and smashed who knows how many birds from the sky. Now its time to finish the job, by sucking all the life giving CO2 from the atmosphere.

Read it.

The discovery may actually signal good news for both species, experts say.

Read it.

Two people-watching episodes this past week brought into focus the real crisis in public health. WuFlu is not a public health crisis, in itself. Rather the grossly politicized exploitation of this novel respiratory disease virus, in service of the lab coat left system, advocated by Woodrow Wilson in the late 1890s and starkly warned of in President Eisenhower’s farewell address, has corrupted and effectively silenced real public health advocacy. Consider two real public health perennial campaigns, largely lost in the noise of COVID exploitation.

I was in my local veteran’s organization canteen (bar) last weekend, having counted the money and updated the bookkeeping. A woman in her 40s had a cough. Her comment: “it is just a smoker’s cough.” That statement called to mind a much younger veteran, a man in his late 20s, coming in after the previous night’s partying with a heavy cough as he went to the cigarette machine for another pack. We have known, since at least the late 1950s, that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and a host of other very unpleasant long-term ailments. COPD, anyone? Listen to old-time radio and you will hear the cigarette companies in the late 1940s, early 1950s, assuring you that doctors attested that their customers experienced no throat irritation from smoking their product.

Austin 6th Street mass shooting suspect released without bail

Jumaane Williams has ‘major concerns’ about Adams’ new NYPD anti-gun unit

A new Mississippi bill is the latest in a long effort to suppress the truth about civil rights history

Vaccine Risk? What Vaccine Risk?

4 symptoms that mean you’ll likely get long COVID (Deseret News) So feel free to PANIC!

Long COVID-19: Study author explains four factors that can predict how you get it (The Hill)

Is it time for Fauci to exit the stage? (Washington Post) He’s become a liability, so it’s time to throw him off the sled.

Tucker Carlson airs his most dishonest and dangerous pandemic segment yet (Washington Post) Tucker must be getting close to home.

Florida Doctor: Families Sneak Ivermectin To Loved Ones In Hospitals With COVID-19, See Improvement

Doctor’s Organization Has Treated Over 150,000 COVID-19 Patients With 99.99% Survival

The Numbers Don’t Lie

We all broke lockdown, and we should have broken it more

How an Anonymous Reporting System Made Yale a COVID ‘Surveillance State’

Monoclonal Antibodies and FDA Emergency Use

Denmark Scraps All COVID Restrictions

Myocarditis Cases Reported After mRNA-Based Covid-19 Vaccination

FDA Asks Court To Delay First 55K Batch Of COVID Docs; Pfizer Moves To Join Case  What are they trying to hide? the SCIENCE?

Taibbi: The Folly Of Pandemic Censorship

The case against masks at school

The COVID-19 Impact of Expressive Individualism

5 Florida Teachers Removed for Refusing to Wear Masks

Nearly 40% Of All Illinois COVID Deaths In The Last Month Are Breakthroughs. What Gives?

Chinese Scientists From Wuhan Discover “Potentially Deadly” New Strain Of Coronavirus

Trudeau Slams “Unacceptable Views” Of Anti-Vaxx Truckers, GoFundMe Blocks Access To ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donations

Fact-Checkers Are Used To Confuse The Public: Sharyl Attkisson

Hall of Fame excludes Curt Schilling due to his politics

Gov. Hochul puts Manhattan DA Bragg on notice over soft-on-crime policies

MSNBC’s Joy Reid: Biden ‘has a point’ to complain about the media: Journalists obsess with ‘conflict’

Record Levels of Gun Violence and the Democrats’ Dilemma (The New Yorker) How to spin the fact that ‘gun violence’ is the direct result of Democrat policies.

Michael Rapaport films alleged shoplifter boldly robbing an NYC Rite Aid  Walked out right by a ‘security guard’, who didn’t lift a finger.

NYPD Reports Shoplifting Levels Not Seen In Nearly 30 Years As Organized Retail Crime Ramps Up Nationwide (New York Magazine)

Gov. Hochul won’t ‘cave to pressure’ as NYC Mayor Adams calls for bail changes

The $100 Million Latinx Bomb

Harm reduction vending machines are coming to New York

Sick Cities and Why Progressives Ruin Them

Meet Brian Williams’ Replacement: The Worst of Stephanie Ruhle

Poll: White Liberals 9 Times More Likely Than Hispanics To Use ‘Latinx’

(a) Neil Young.

(b) Some homeless guy interrupted pooping on the streets of San Francisco.

(c) Can’t tell the difference.

UPDATE: Report: Strong Spike In Google Searches For ‘Who Is Neil Young’  Babylon Bee.

Read it.

The following video from Italy is the latest in a series showing examples of nano-structures found in vials of experimental mRNA treatments intended to mitigate the effects of infection with the Wuhan Coronavirus. I don’t know enough about microscopy to confirm that these objects are in fact nanotechnology, much less the self-assembling devices they are alleged to be. However, they are plainly artifacts.

Unlike previous samples shown here, not all of these can be passed off as salt crystals. The final one, in particular, has dome-like protuberances unlike anything I’ve ever seen in crystalline structures. Unless these slides are complete fakes, something weird is going on here.

Meet the Progressive Frontrunners To Replace Justice Stephen Breyer

This Silicon Valley city just voted to institute first-in-the-nation gun ownership requirements (CNN) And CNN couldn’t be more delighted.

San Jose approves gun owners liability insurance  It’s going to be difficult checking the liability insurance for carjackers and drive-by shooters.

Reforming the Electoral Count Act is crucial to our democracy. And it must be done on a bipartisan basis. (Washington Post) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’, and ‘bipartisan’ means ‘Republicans knuckle under’.

Watch: Mass Release Of ‘Single Adult Migrants’ Into Small Texas Town

CNN’s Acosta Says New Anti-CRT Law is Making Virginia a ‘Soviet-Style Police State’

Teachers’ Union Taps Liberal Watchdog To Help Students Identify Misinformation
8 Cities That Help Explain National Crime Wave

BREAKING: MSNBC Bizarrely Pretends Retiring Stephen Breyer Is ‘Conservative or Moderate’

Biased NewsGuard Partners With Teachers’ Union to Bring Information War to K-12 Kids

AP Chief Takes Part in Olympic Promo Hosted by CCP Propaganda Department

Read it.

I tend to do what I do best, procrastinate. Well, to feel better about myself, I like to think I am prioritizing. Either way, I have felt compelled to write about this supply chain crisis since White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed President Joe Biden saved Christmas on Dec. 22. Nothing gets my blood boiling more than utter lies thrown in my face. How can someone say something so stupid, and how can so many people actually believe it? We have all seen the empty shelves for randomly illogical items, starting with toilet paper and now cat food.

With a very small engineering firm, there is a larger supply chain crisis that will be coming to a head in three to six months. We can’t get parts. I could go off on tangents, but let’s focus on just one major device. A PLC, or programmable logic controller, is a computer that runs actual stuff. Not things like a washer and dryer but how about the water that comes into your house, the water that leaves, the drawbridge that needs to go up, the MRI you desperately need. Almost everything you touch that is manmade uses one of these controllers at some point in the process.

Read it.

Joe Biden last week said the American response in Ukraine would be proportional to Vladimir Putin’s actions. “It depends,” the president posited, thoughts drifting like blobs in a lava lamp. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion…”

Alarms sounded all over Washington. The rip in the national political illusion was so severe, Republicans and Democrats were forced to come out agreeing, leaping into each other’s arms in panic. Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who increasingly looks like a man about to miss a historically important free throw, said of a potential Russian invasion, “We can make crystal clear the stark consequences of that choice.” Republican Senator Ted Cruz said Biden “shocked the world by giving Putin a green light to invade Ukraine.” The National Security Council issued a statement through Jen Psaki that any Russian move into Ukraine would be “met with a swift, severe, and united response.”

In a later press conference, Biden explained he had to cut things short because, “You guys will ask me all about Russia.” He appears days from pulling his pants down to show reporters the electrodes White House chief of staff Ron Klain has probably attached to his testicles by now.

It’s up to America’s state courts to rescue democracy (The Hill) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

Voting rights fight moves to state ballots (Axios)

Congresswoman in hot water over job offer to get rival not to run Corruption is what Democrats do.

Youngkin urges calm on his call for a ban on mask mandates but also stokes division (Washington Post)

Tom Friedman and Israel will save US democracy and blow your mind (Al-Jezeera)

Chesa Boudin recall supporters want stiffer punishments for Union Square looters

‘Free Speech Advocates’ Panic Over Parents’ Push for More Curriculum Transparency

The M&M’s changes aren’t progressive. Give Green her boots back. (Washington Post)

How “Workless” Men Are Driving America’s Labor Crisis

Here Are The Dumbest Moments From Jim Acosta’s ‘Democracy in Peril’ Debut.

How the Feds Handcuff States to Medicaid

Crime: CNN Buys Into Liberal Pols’ Focus on Guns, Not Criminals

Virginia Scraps Critical Race Theory Program Critics Said Would Have Destroyed Math Education

Behar Predicts Doocy to Be ‘Fired’ By Fox for Acting Like the Adult to Biden’s Insult  They actually pay her money to be this stupid.

NY Attorney General Taps ‘Abolish ICE’ Activist as Special Adviser  Jobs for the Crust.

Read it.

It’s a compelling vision in some ways, but right now it looks dystopic. The ranks of what Marx called the “reserve army of the unemployed” are simply disengaging. A decade ago, Gallup’s Jim Clifton wrote about The Coming Jobs War, in which he predicted a global struggle for diminishing employment. Now there is plenty of work but people are not interested. In the US, labor participation rates have fallen from 80 percent in 1950 to 61 percent now, down from 64.4 percent in 2010. Nearly one-third of American working-age males are not in the labor force, suffering high rates of incarceration, or drug, alcohol, and other health issues.

And, to be sure, opportunities may be further reduced by technology, which could accelerate the loss of many kinds of jobs that once provided a means of upward mobility: postal workers, switchboard operators, machinists, computer operators, bank tellers, travel agents. For the 90 million Americans who work in such jobs—and their counterparts elsewhere—the future could be bleak. By 2030, Oxford Economics predicts that 20 million factory jobs worldwide will fall to automation—1.5 million in the US, 2.5 million in the EU, and 12.5 million in China.

The pandemic clearly accelerated this process, notably in the service sector. With the shift to online and takeout food, chains like McDonald’s are perfecting electronic delivery systems that reduce the need for human labor. Large capital investments are necessary for such adaptations, which—as France’s Thomas Piketty has noted—favors larger corporations as opposed to smaller family businesses.

Read it.

Out of a desire to make voting “easier” and perhaps exaggerated fears of public gatherings during the pandemic, most U.S. jurisdictions permitted unrestricted mail-in balloting in 2020. What did Americans lose when ballot secrecy was attenuated or vanished altogether?

Make no mistake, ballot secrecy is incompatible with secure mail-in balloting. At the polls, we each go into a little booth and make our choices in private. By contrast, no one knows where a mail-in ballot was filled out, or if a party or union activist hovered over the voter or even filled in the circles. Nobody knows what inducements, whether cash or threats, were offered to ensure that the person voted “correctly.” And if the ballot was “harvested” — turned in to the vote-counters by activists instead of by voters themselves — our suspicions deepen.

Read it.

For several centuries, at least since John Stuart Mill, the Left has defined itself by its commitment to freedom of speech. This was practically the sine qua non for calling oneself a liberal. Yet some time around 2019-20, in the historical blink of an eye, free speech was simply . . . dismissed. It became obligatory on the Left to support systematic control of our public discourse by a handful of massive tech companies, in cooperation with the government.

San Francisco tested a $1,000 guaranteed income pilot program. Here’s how it went for two artists.  (S.F. Gate) Not two plumbers. Not two mechanics. Two artistes.

‘We are weakening democracy’: fears over lack of lessons in how government works (The Guardian) In the Narrative Media, ‘democracy’ means ‘Democrat vote fraud’.

University language guide says ‘grandfather,’ ‘housekeeping,’ ‘spirit animal’ are ‘problematic’ words

Pennsylvania school board member tells parents ‘I don’t work for you’

Manhattan Rite Aid pharmacy closing after rash of thefts, customers and workers say

The Constitution expects that the federal government will set standards for democracy in every state. (Salt Lake Tribune) No, it doesn’t. It says ‘republican form of government’, and doesn’t mention democracy at all.

Immigrant couple returns to Mexico to retire after 3 decades of working in Chicago: ‘It’s a dream of many undocumented people.’ (Chicago Tribune) I have no doubt.

Why shoplifting is soaring across the US — and will only get worse

California judge OKs earlier releases for repeat offenders Time to leave.

A single word sparks a crossfire between the Supreme Court, NPR and its star reporter Nina Totenberg (Washington  Post) Let me guess: ‘Liar’.

he Gorsuch-Sotomayor kerfuffle shows how the Supreme Court will close ranks amid controversy (CNN) It also shows that CNN reporters will lie like a rug.

Golden State tarnished: Ex-pats reveal ‘why we left California for good’

Social Justice Slams Into Europe, Part 2: In Scotland, They’ll Take the Woke Road

Wisconsin Judge Prevents Nurses from Going to New Employer

‘Smart’ Gun Mocked After Demonstration Fail

Non-Citizen Voting Push Is Part Of Agenda To Rid America Of Citizenship: Election Expert

America is now in fascism’s legal phase  (The Guardian)

China’s Censors Ban Hollywood Films As Beijing Builds Its Own “Movie Empire”

Anonymous Officials Claim There’s An Evil Russian Plot Again But The Evidence Is Secret Again

California School District Faces Legal Action Over LGBTQ+ Activist Teachers

“Take Only What You Need:” DC Asks People To Limit Supermarket Purchases As Empty Shelves Persist  Plenty of stuff on the shelves here in Texas.

Progressives are re-segregating American institutions under the guise of ‘racial equity’

Manhattan DA Bragg meets with local leaders, refuses to back away from controversial crime stance

The infiltration of woke DA’s into the justice system will not be easy to fix

Michiganders say children are ‘not the government’s’ after viral Dem Party Facebook post backlash

White House adviser claims GOP laws ‘would allow people to subvert’ 2022 election The way Democrats are planning to?

‘No SALT no deal’: Democrats vow to block Build Back Better bill without tax break (Reuters) Rich liberals deserve this tax break!

Gavin Newsom Demands Answers From Whoever’s In Charge Of California  Babylon Bee.

In rare cases, coronavirus vaccines may cause Long Covid–like symptoms  Mainly because they aren’t really vaccines but rather genetically engineered therapeutics.

Read it.

Jose Figueroa, who manages Polar Manufacturing, a small company that produces hinges, locks, and brackets in south Chicago, told Wired that he employed a robot on the production line that costs only $8 per hour versus a minimum wage of $15 per hour for humans. He said the robot has allowed workers to concentrate on other tasks while increasing output.

Read it.

The upcoming Winter Olympic games aren’t just the genocide Olympics. They are also the totalitarian Olympics.

Read it.

The columnist Katharine Whitehorn was apparently fond of saying: “you can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others.” I remembered this as I listened to Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, describe his plans to “make sure that people get their vaccine” at a panel hosted this week by the World Economic Forum.

Bancel wants to make regular COVID-19 booster shots more attractive by bundling them with vaccines against other, more familiar ailments. “Our goal is to have a single annual booster, so that we don’t have compliance issues where people don’t want to get two to three shots a winter, but they get one dose where they get you know, a booster for corona, and a booster for flu and RSV [respiratory syncytial virus].” Skeptics, Bancel reasons, will be more willing to take a COVID shot if it comes conveniently packaged with other shots they might get anyway.

This strategy seems perfectly designed to have the opposite of its intended effect. When surveyed last September, 88% of those who remain unvaccinated against COVID said that that “there’s too much pressure on Americans to get a COVID-19 vaccine.” Almost as many (80%) suspect that “public health officials are not telling us everything they know about COVID-19 vaccines.” If those same public health officials, demonstrating their characteristic humility, now proceed to make second-class citizens out of anyone who resists their new omni-vax—what is likely to be the result?

Read it.

…economist Garett Jones recently opined that Trump’s scuttled hopes to release a COVID-19 vaccine a few weeks earlier “likely would have saved at least 100,000 American lives.”

…Pfizer did not reveal its trial’s favorable results until November 9—six days after the election. The company had originally planned to consider submitting an EUA request to the FDA with just 32 data points; instead it gathered 94, and it waited another 11 days to accrue the requested safety data, plus even more data showing how well the vaccine worked, before making its filing.

Politics kills.

Read it.

Todd Bensman is senior national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies. CIS has posted his profile here along with links to his writings. Most recently, Bensman has traveled to Tapachula, Mexico to report on the wave of illegals headed our way from all over the world. His January 17 report from Tapachula is “Mexico’s Duplicitous ‘Ant Operation’ Moved Tens of Thousands to the U.S. Border Sight Unseen — and Will Again Through 2022.” Subhead: “Mexico is now camouflaging mass migration it is supposed to be blocking.”

Bensman’s Twitter feed presents a preview of coming attractions and related reporting. I have compiled most of Bensman’s tweets from Tapachula below in chronological order. His most recent tweet at the bottom is an hour old. I thought readers might find them of interest.

ZMan surveys a barren wasteland.

In the movie Conspiracy about the 1942 Wannsee Conference, one of the actors tells another a story about a man who hated his father and loved his mother. When his mother died, he did not weep at her grave. When his father died, he was inconsolable, crying like a baby. The lesson of the story was that the man had defined his life by his hatred of his father. When his father was gone, he lost that which gave meaning and purpose to his life. That was why he was crying.

The American Left and their political party are now that man weeping at the grave of Donald Trump’s presidential career. This is, in part, why they cannot let go of the Covid madness, despite their party’s efforts. The mask is a reminder of better times when they had a reason to get up every morning. It is why their party is putting on the insurrection show for them. It is a bit of nostalgia for better times. It is why they hope to reanimate the Trump movement with an indictment.

Read it.

Too expensive to fail.

Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to Reason magazine to Planetizen seems to be worried about the future of the St. Louis Loop Trolley. Nearly everyone in St. Louis agrees that it was a failure, but the Federal Transit Administration has demanded that the city keep running it or repay the $37 million in federal funds used to build it.

There is supposed to be a good reason for the federal “claw-back” policy: if local officials know they will be required to fund operations, they might be reluctant to ask for federal funds to build a project in the first place. Unfortunately, elected officials have time horizons measured in election cycles, so they really don’t think far enough ahead to worry about operating costs.

Tyler Cowen.

Economists typically define rationality as the effective use of means to achieve ends — spending your money for maximum enjoyment, for example. That is fine for some purposes, but it fails when it comes to understanding those political leaders, Putin included, who are obsessed with power.

The economic framework doesn’t work well when power is the end itself. While no one can truly know what’s in the mind of Putin, he has ruled Russia for 22 years, a pretty good sign that he cares about power. Putin also grew up in an era — as a KGB agent behind the Iron Curtain — when power was the currency of status.

So how does the quest for power make Putin difficult to deter?

A grave week for civil rights, democracy and a presidency (CNN) Sounds like a Narrative.

California weighing proposal that could double its taxes  Time to leave.

Single-payer health care advocates rip Gavin Newsom for ‘flip-flop’ (S.F. Chronicle)

Autocracies outdo democracies on public trust – survey (Reuters) And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

New book challenges Civil War’s old myths (Washington Post) Let’s re-write history according to the Narrative.

RINO ALERT: Romney on election reform: I never got a call from the White House  They only called people who wouldn’t vote their way anyhow.

WEF’s Schwab Gives China’s Xi Propaganda Platform Against “Hegemonic Bullying… Cold War Mentality”

San Francisco Walgreens Introduces New Frequent Looter Rewards Punch Card  Babylon Bee.

CBS Helps Dems Exploit MLK Day to Rally for Federal Election Takeover

Through the Colonial Lens: How Mainstream Media Narratives Erase Hindu Voices

CUNY Professors Sue To Break With Anti-Semitic Union

Ireland to Launch Universal Basic Income Program for Artists  Ireland is a great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Irony: NY Times Frets Over Media Censorship in Serbia, Cheers U.S. Big Tech

Venmo, PayPal and Zelle must report $600 in transactions to IRS   Fortunately, you can still write a check — or can you?

Union Pacific Considers Rerouting Trains Around Los Angeles Amid Railcar Theft Spike

That Explains A Lot: Top NBA Investor Says He Doesn’t ‘Care About the Uyghurs’

CBS Commiserates With, Puffs Up Elizabeth Warren on Voting

State Superintendent Won’t Approve Curriculum Telling Disabled Preschoolers to ‘Deconstruct Whiteness’

Bitter Fruit: Marshall McLuhan and the Rise of Fake News

AOC Called Out As “Fake Progressive” By Anti-War Protesters At Her Office

CBS Changes Tune on Train Looting, Finally Mentions Soft-on-Crime LA Policies