It's On!

 

Friends, the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is officially...a race!  That's because, at long last, we have two viable contenders: Donald J. Trump and Nikki Haley.  Many more candidates are expected to join the fray.  Does Nikki Haley have a good chance of winning?  Not according to the latest polls, but hey -- a DJT versus DeSantis slugfest could open doors for virtually anyone.  As an aside, you might note in this story DJT's very mild reaction to Haley's candidacy.  He's not apoplectic or aggrieved, as one might expect.  One wonders, therefore, whether the net effect of Haley's campaign will be to help divide Republican votes between so many candidates that Trump can win (again) with only a plurality of Republicans behind him.  Perhaps Haley already knows this.  Perhaps Trump does too.  Perhaps they've even coordinated strategies.  A conspiracy theory, you say?  Could be, but politics makes strange bedfellows, does it not?

https://www.breitbart.com/news/haley-announces-presidential-campaign-challenging-trump/

 

Two things seem to be happening in Gen Z: they're getting more and more progressive, and they're getting more and more unhappy and unhinged.  The two phenomena may be closely linked!  A lot of establishment propaganda aimed at young people is not exactly optimistic and ego-boosting, after all.  Sometimes, one is tempted to regard the leftist worldview, which sees a white supremacist, a Russian agent, a killer virus, and a climate catastrophe behind every bush, as an elaborate scheme to convince humanity to self-annihilate.  Certainly quite a few kids seem to be taking it in that spirit.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/14/nolte-democrat-war-children-explodes-overdose-deaths-suicide-attempts/

 

What is "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI)?  No one really knows, but one potential answer is that it's the greatest manifestation of virtue-signaling in American history.  In other words, it's an (elaborate and expensive) effort by corporate America and all our various institutions to make it seem like they're advancing "racial and social justice", when all they're really doing is hiring some progressive blowhards to nag us a few times a year.  Maybe you have a different definition of DEI?  I'd love to hear it.

 

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/02/14/the_sudden_dominance_of_the_diversity_industrial_complex_880202.html 

Is the climate getting steadily worse?  That's certainly the party line, but there's some evidence to suggest that these claims are, at best, way overblown.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/02/14/the-climate-scare-narrative-continues-to-collapse/

 

No doubt you've heard that inflation is slowly coming under control, as the brilliant minds in the Biden Administration and at the Fed work their magic.  Well, the signals are mixed, and there's certainly no clear evidence that inflation will cease to be a worry anytime soon.  The bottom line for the average worker: your real (inflation-adjusted) income is 2% lower than it was a year ago.  Of course, that's not Biden's fault.  Oh, heck no!  He only takes credit.  He never assumes blame.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/consumer-price-index-january-2023-.html 

Finally, add the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to the (very) long list of agencies, organizations, and institutions that the Left is weaponizing to force all of us in line.  Some of its high-handed actions could cause corporate America to resist, of course.  Then again, corporate stooges might also decide to knuckle under and hop on the DEI train, and the climate catastrophe train, and the open borders train, and all those other leftist trains, in order to avoid the wrath of Biden (and friends).

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/republican-ftc-commissioner-wilson-announces-resignation.html