Friday, September 18, 2020

The Same Old, Same Old California Suicide

 Victor Davis Hanson

Tech titans and Bay Area Bourbons grow rich, the middle class flees, forests burn.  


Fall
 is almost here in California. So we know the annual script.

A few ostracized voices will again warn in vain of the need to remove millions of dead trees withered from the 2013–14 drought and subsequent infestations, clean up tinderbox hillsides, and beef up the fire services. They will all be ignored as right-wing nuts or worse.

"Environmentalists will sneer that the new forestry sees fires as medicinal and natural, and global warming as inevitable because of “climate deniers.”

Late-summer fires will then consume our foothills, mountains, and forests. Long-dead trees from the drought will explode and send their pitch bombs to shower the forest with flames." . . 

"Once can anticipate Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s next move because, beneath her self-righteousness, she will predictably be silly, often cruel, and entirely hypocritical. She may be the only House speaker in history to publicly tear up the president’s State of the Union address, after he customarily handed it to her on live television. She worries whether we are Christian enough in welcoming illegal aliens and sacrificing during the quarantine, while she shows off her designer ice cream in her designer Sub-Zero refrigerators in her designer wine-country palazzo — surrounded by the sort of “decorative” fences and “modest” gates we are assured are not walls to keep out those who, she lectures us, are California’s blessed future.

. . . How long can a state suffer the rich Bourbons of the Bay Area?  

"As long as its brave nobodies still drive ’dozers right into conflagrations to create lifesaving fire breaks, as long as its despised farmers continue to serve as the nation’s food basket, as long as unheralded pilots fly blind into smoke to drop fire retardant, and as long as there is something left for the parasitical elite of the rich inheritance from California’s brilliant and industrious but now long-dead past"

Did Biden Really Just Rehash the Story That Torched His 1988 Presidential Hopes Last Night?

 Townhall  "As Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist noted, some in the liberal media tweeted the excerpt out last night unaware of the devastating impact it had on Biden’s campaign in the 1980s. Also, it’s in keeping with other lies Biden has doled out about his academic record. He’s no scholar, folks. And at times when he’s spoken about his high IQ with regards to his supposed academic achievement—there’s no evidence to demonstrate that point at all. In fact, during his years in law school, Biden actually plagiarized some reviews there as well (via The Federalist) [Bold text indicates Biden’s rant]:

Biden’s first failed run for the presidency was ended by his dishonesty over his academic record and his plagiarism, including the biography and speeches of British Labor politician Neil Kinnock.

On a campaign stop in New Hampshire in 1987, a voter asked Biden where he attended law school and where he placed in his class.

Biden lashed out at the man angrily, making a series of claims that were not true:

BIDEN: I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my — in my class to have a full academic scholarship. In the first year in law school I decided didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class, and then decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school, and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot-court competition. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits — I only needed 123 credits. And I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you’d like Frank.

It turned out that Biden did not receive a full academic scholarship, but a half scholarship based on financial need. He did not end up in the top half of his class, but near the very bottom. There is no record of him winning the moot court competition. He did not receive the outstanding student award at the University of Delaware. And he graduated with only one degree.

Worse, a release of his academic records showed that Biden had plagiarized five pages of a law review article.

Tunnel Wall covered this some time back:
. . . . . . "But Biden’s exit from the 1988 race is worth recalling in detail, because his transgressions far exceeded Obama’s own relatively innocent lifting of rhetorical set pieces from his friend Deval Patrick, which occasioned a brief flap last February. Biden’s misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect. In some ways, the 1988 campaign—in which scandal forced not just Biden but also Gary Hart from the race—marked a watershed in the absurd gotcha politics that have since marred our politics and punditry. But unlike Hart’s plight, Biden’s can’t be blamed on an overly intrusive or hectoring press corps. The press was right to dig into this one.." . . .


Joe Biden Plagiarized Neil Kinnock’s Life Again . . . Joe has Lost his Grip on Realilty and That is Dangerous  . . . "everyone in the media younger than 45 seems to lack any recollection of the events of 1987 when Biden declared his candidacy for President in June, only to withdraw from the race in September after it was revealed by the New York Times and Des Moines Register that Biden’s biography as delivered in his Iowa stump speeches that summer included significant events from the life of Kinnock – as described by Kinnock in his own speeches." . . . And it led to his withdrawing from that presidential race.

There are still Fox News shows worth viewing

 American Thinker   "Okay, Fox News is changing.   I hear the complaints.  But for me, I change with the times.  When it comes to Fox News, I now apply a concept in medicine called debridement.  Debridement is  the selective removal of damaged tissue from a wound.  Fox News is now wounded and infected by liberalism.  Still, as a consumer of news, I have the freedom, and the duty, to remove programs infecting this news network from my viewing 

schedule.  That's why God invented the DVR.  There are still parts of the Fox News network worth saving, and I have that power in my personal viewing.

"So here's my list of programs between Fox News and Fox Business I record and selectively view every day:

  • Varney & Company
  • Fox and Friends
  • Lou Dobbs Tonight
  • Evening Edit
  • Tucker Carlson Tonight
  • Hannity
  • The Ingraham Angle

"I quit watching Fox News daytime programming after 9:00 A.M. E.T. and Fox Business after noontime quite some time ago.  Frankly, I have a mix of news and opinions that I want and have the time to view.  After all, time is a finite resource, and we all have the personal responsibility to manage it well." . . .

CNN is busy rewriting history to blame Trump for the riots


 Bookworm

The polls show that the public hates the “mostly peaceful” riots, so CNN published a deeply dishonest “article” blaming Trump for the riots.

. . . "With lock-stepped, statist precision, the Democrats in the media and in political positions turned on a dime. Suddenly, Biden was no longer talking about peaceful protest. Instead, in one of the most dishonest speeches in American political history, he accused Trump and an imaginary horde of right-wing militias of causing the violence in America. As was the case at the convention, the words Antifa and BLM never passed his lips.

"CNN, which was at the forefront of the “peaceful protest” meme, has now published a hysterical screed that is, if possible, even more dishonest than Biden’s speech. Let’s start with the title: “Trump’s depraved plan to try to win reelection.”

"Over the years of blogging, I have read many media articles that played with the truth or presented an alternative view of facts. In my entire life, though, I have never seen anything like this. The author, Frida Ghitis, a former producer and correspondent for CNN who also writes for the Washington Post, is delusional. Or if she’s not delusional, she’s evil, for only an evil person could lie with such fervor and aplomb.

"The remainder of this post fisks her article. There’s a lot of dishonest filler, which I’ll ignore. I’m just going to go for her purported “facts,” each and every one of which is a lie or something that mutilates a small core of truth:

That Trump wants chaos and mayhem is not a secret. It has been confirmed repeatedly by his team. In one of her last Fox News appearances, his now-former strategist Kellyanne Conway confirmed what we all knew: “The more chaos, anarchy and vandalism reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” she said. Lara Trump, daughter-in-law and campaign adviser, later told Fox that the violence is bringing voters to Trump.

"Breitbart debunked this. I’ll just summarize. Pete Buttigieg was one of the first to blame Trump for the violence. When Conway appeared on Fox and Friends, someone asked her about this claim. Conway referred to this video, where the speaker is obviously a Democrat furious that the mob’s violence will undoubtedly push people into Trump’s camp:" . . .

Netflix needs to pay a price for Cuties, its pedo sexploitation movie

The young actresses in Cuties will never regain their childhood innocence. Their only path is to try to follow Cardi b and become rich through rapping and dancing porn. But most likely, they will just gyrate for drunks in a sleaze joint.

 Bookworm Room  "Lulu, a mental health therapist specializing in children, wrote this essay to explain everything that’s wrong with Netflix showing Cuties."

. . . "Much has been said already, but not nearly enough, about the perverseness of Netflix and this grotesque film, Cuties, which masks itself as art but is, instead, for those too

sophisticated to side with Trump supporters, a socially-acceptable presentation of child porn and the sexualization of pre and pubescent female bodies (11 years old). This is dangerous stuff.

"Bookworm has written many times about the Left’s sexualization of children, from little boy drag queens performing before adult men stuffing money in their pants, to drag queens reading storybooks to preschoolers in libraries, to the sexual transitioning of elementary (and younger) aged school children, to the recent advocacy for loosening restrictions on adult/child sex in California. Netflix, however, has touted this film as a celebration of female empowerment and exploration of sexuality. Sure it is.

"There should be no surprise that this film closely follows Cardi b’s number one song about female genitalia and overt sexual activity. Who is listening to her music? Where are their parents?

"No doubt, the little girls in the film imitating Cardi b’s dancing style have learned that this is what our society expects of them. But we are not empowering women. We are debasing them. We all know Joe Biden granted his first interview to Cardi b, singer of female genitalia porn songs. Maybe someone could ask Joe about this and why Cardi b is allowed to divorce her occupation from her interview.

"But perhaps Joe actually is among the designated audience of Cuties. Netflix, can you clarify who the designated audience is?" . . .

A few last thoughts: What do Netflix content power consultants Michelle Obama and Megan Markle have to say about this film? Do they want to be associated with a streaming site that exploits the sexuality of prepubescent children of color? Does their continued association and silence mean they value money over the safety of children? Isn’t silence consent?  And what of Prince Harry? Should he speak out? He has a moral platform since his uncle Prince Andrew has been tainted by his visits to Epstein’s pedo-island. And what about you, Barack Obama, father of two young women?

Five Quick Things: The Most Shamefully Dishonest Campaign in Political History

 "Lying is all Biden & Co. are cut out to do."


Jack Cashill  "Did you happen to see, by any chance, the interview Bret Baier did on Fox News with a soy-eater named T.J. Ducklo, who serves as the national press spokesman for the Joe Biden campaign?
"If you didn’t, you really missed out, because it was pretty destructive. And with that, we’ll launch into our Five Quick Things, which all fall under the category of evidence that the Biden campaign is the most shameless pack of liars ever unleashed on the American people.
"This is by no means whatsoever an exhaustive list. It’s simply the first five things that came to mind. We could easily come up with 25 more. You’re welcome to put your own nominations into the comment thread below.
"1. Joe Biden never opposed the China travel ban.
"Seriously. That’s Ducklo’s statement in the Baier interview on Wednesday. He actually said that Biden never opposed it.
"Biden said Trump’s ban on travel from China, which was more or less the first thing the president did when the full scope of COVID-19 began to unfold in late January, was racist.
" 'This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” he said on the very day Trump announced the ban.
"Two months later, when it was obvious the travel ban was the right call and the American people fully recognized just how awful the Chinese communists were in spreading COVID-19 around the globe, Biden quietly jumped on board with the travel ban." . . .

"It’s laughable, but it isn’t the most laughable thing Biden has going." . . . Summary follows:

2. Biden wouldn’t really end fracking. Honest!

3. It’s really Trump who’s pushing those riots in Democrat-run cities, folks.

4. Mask mandate? Who said anything about a mask mandate?

5. Whaddya mean, defunding the police? Trump is the one who wants to do that!

"Even as demagogic campaign rhetoric goes, Joe Biden’s speech earlier this week about Trump as a “climate arsonist” was exceptionally absurd. He blamed Trump in effect for not controlling the weather, implying that a Biden presidency would eliminate extreme weather events. Barack Obama famously said that he could stop the rise of the oceans. Biden is making similarly grand claims."