The Queen is Dead! Long live the...Airbus???

 

Friends, today we bid a tearful farewell to the Boeing 747.  This afternoon Boeing made the last commercial delivery of the aviation mainstay.  The 747 is an iconic American jet that harkens back to the late 60s, when the United States was an industrial colossus that bestrode the world.  Back in those days, men were pilots, women were stewardesses, and everyone was smoking like a chimney -- but, more to the point, our country was confident, grounded (morally, not aeronautically), and optimistic.  The world was our oyster, and the 747 was the vehicle that, more than any other, would take us wherever we wanted to go...  And look at us now: we're stuck in the economy section of an Airbus A319, paying extra for hand luggage and a Diet Coke!  How the mighty are fallen, indeed.  Godspeed, Jumbo Jet!  We had some good times together, and you'll be missed.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/last-boeing-747-leaves-everett-washington/index.html

 

In other news, the constant fluctuations in the eternal battle between Trumpism and Bidenism are fascinating to watch.  To make a long story short, as long as the Dems and their media allies can get the American people to forget that Biden exists -- and to concentrate instead on the WORST PERSON EVER (you know who...) -- they can perform well in the polls and at election time.  On the other hand, Biden is, well, the President, in case anyone's forgotten, so conjuring him out of existence, in terms of public opinion, ain't easy.  Are they up to the challenge?  We'll find out in 2024.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/29/politics/joe-biden-donald-trump-approval-president/index.html 

The privatization of our election infrastructure that happened in a big way in 2020 is by no means a thing of the past.  Big money is flowing in "philanthropic"circles to underwrite efforts to "improve access" to the vote.  Some red states have pushed back, and that's a good first step, but much more needs to be done to prevent the private infiltration of public boards of elections.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/01/31/big_philanthropy_advances_as_a_big_player_in_the_private_funding_of_public_elections_877615.html

 

This is an interesting take on the long-term impact of A.I.  The author argues that millions of skilled professionals will soon be out of work because their jobs can be done by supercomputers, and, if that's true, it's going to create a massive new constituency for Republicans, who are the party of Americans who feel "left behind" by social and economic change.  It remains an open question which will be the bigger concern in the 21st century: a worker shortage, caused by demographic decline and the, uh, uselessness of so many modern humans, or a worker surplus, caused by automation and artificial intelligence?

https://www.realclearpennsylvania.com/articles/2023/01/30/can_chat_gpt3_make_pennsylvania_a_red_state_878709.html

 

What's the chief goal of the Fed right now?  To reduce the size of your paycheck -- duh!  Higher interest rates are designed to cool the increases in wages and benefits that we've seen of late, and which the Fed views as unsustainable.  So there's good news...for bankers: wage gains are now significantly below the level of inflation, meaning that real wages are trending down.  That's bad for you, Average Joe, but it's good for corporate profits, and thus for the Masters of the Universe.  See, everything works out in the end...

 

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3837287-wage-growth-slows-down-as-fed-eyes-end-to-rate-hikes/ 

Finally, I mentioned demographic collapse earlier.  Well, Italy is way out on the frontier of the baby bust.  Its birth rate is derisory, and, unlike us, it's also on the wrong end of a brain drain.  If these trends continue, Italy could find itself joining the Third World before long.  I guess there's an upside: your next getaway to the Amalfi Coast could be a steal!

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/31/report-italy-is-fastest-shrinking-nation-in-the-west/

Achtung!

 

Friends, my latest article upbraids the West for what I regard as a wildly unrealistic and dangerously provocative form of intervention in the Russia-Ukraine War.  In particular, I regard Germany's (soft) belligerence as a huge mistake that is almost certain to goad Russia into herculean efforts to crush Ukraine once and for all.  See if you don't agree with my point of view...

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/28/the-west-is-prosecuting-its-crusade-against-russia-with-stunning-naivete/

 

***

 

In other news, Ronna McDaniel is keeping her job as Chair of the RNC.  That blows the minds of many conservatives and Republicans, given that the GOP has underperformed (by some measures) in three election cycles in a row, but then again McDaniel has presided over big Republican gains in terms of fundraising and voter mobilization.  It isn't so much that Republicans have done badly in recent elections.  It's that Democrats have done better, or at least they've made maximum and very judicious use of their resources, and they've got motivating their base, even when their own candidates are duds, down to a science.  Anyway, we're stuck with Ronna, so let's hope she can figure it all out by 2024.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ronna-mcdaniel-wins-re-election-to-an-unprecedented-fourth-term-chairing-the-republican-national-committee/ar-AA16OMVs 

A Win for Democracy

 

Friends, in a democracy, we wouldn't expect everyone to like Donald Trump, would we?  I mean, taking issuing with our leaders is an American birthright!  Likewise, however, our leaders have the right to, well, take issue with us.  They have a right to speak and be heard, by those who wish to hear them.  Donald Trump has been denied that right by the high muckety-mucks of Big Tech for far too long.  Today, Facebook is taking a step back from the brink of totalitarian dystopia by allowing our former president to...speak his mind.  Bravo!  I stopped using Facebook for political purposes a long time ago, because of their disgusting bias and intolerance, but a win is a win, and I'm very glad to see that Twitter and "Meta" are once again moving in the right direction.  Google -- all eyes are on YOU!

https://www.newsnationnow.com/entertainment-news/media/meta-ending-its-suspension-of-former-president-trump/

 

In a clear sign that the battle for free speech is far from won, Twitter appears to be censoring journalism critical of the leader of India.  Not cool, twits!

 

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/01/26/free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-caves-to-pressure-from-india-to-censor-documentary-critical-of-modi/ 

I tend to agree with our former president that sending tanks to Ukraine is a terrible idea that will further escalate a war that we have no realistic hope of "winning".  What's worse, the longer the war drags on, the greater is the danger of World War III.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109755096828949225

 

Finally, while we may be poised at the threshold of recession, we aren't there yet.  That's both good news and bad news.  It's good news, because economic decline might still be avoidable.  It's bad news because there's every reason to believe that things can and will get worse.

 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-gdp-grew-pace-fourth-quarter-us-economy-cools-slightly 

What Could Go Wrong?

 

Friends, when people ask me, "What's wrong with Eastern Europe today?", I invariably answer: "Needs more German panzers, obviously!"  Thanks to the wisdom of NATO, Ukraine is about to be overrun with German tanks, and I'll bet that will settle those Russians right down...  In fact, I can tell by the look on Putin's face that he's itching to surrender.  What a relief that's going to be!

Ukraine's hunger for Western tanks, which is about to be satisfied, is just one of many scintillating topics that we cover in this week's Newsmaker Show.  Brian and I also consider the balance of forces in the struggle between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the prospects for Joe Biden's reelection bid, China's demographic stumbles, the future of the Washington Post, the political preferences of Gen Z, and the omnipresence of wokeness.  

Man oh man!  Is it possible to find any other radio program that packs so much insight into such a short span of time each week?  I doubt it!  Prove me wrong, people...

https://wlea.net/newsmaker-dr-nick-waddy-january-25-2023/

***

In other news, keep an eye on that explosive free speech case against the Biden Administration coming out of Missouri and Louisiana.  I'll be extremely disappointed if the Supreme Court doesn't weigh in on this issue in the next few years.  We need to know, once and for all, to what extent the federal government can participate in, and foster, censorship online.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/white-house-engaged-vast-censorship-enterprise-conservatives-covid-critics

Finally, undoubtedly the most important story of 2023, and perhaps that of 2024 too, will be the looming recession.  Maybe it will be in our rearview mirror by the time Americans vote in our next presidential election?  Perhaps.  The severity and duration of the downturn, more than any other factor, will determine Sleepy Joe's fate...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/recession-2023-likely-conference-board-indicator/

"M&Ms" Stands For "Monsters and Mass-Murderers", Don't Ya Know?

 

Friends, a cursory perusal of the new "woke" configuration of the M&Ms "spokescandies", as of last January, reveals the obvious and shocking truth: the new look was designed to foment a race war, a massive spike in global terrorism, the melting of the polar icecaps, and subsequent genocide, armageddon, and beer shortages.  That's why we at WaddyIsRight are so pleased to learn that the spokescandies will be temporarily "paused", while Maya Rudolph takes over the important role of Chief Candy Hawker.  Whew!  We really dodged the bullet there, didn't we?

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/mms-pause-spokescandies-replace-maya-rudolph-brand-struggle-political-shifts

 

In more lighthearted news, the U.S. has decided to escalate its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war by providing M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.  Although the article doesn't even mention it, this will almost certainly lead to WWIII and thus to the death of everyone reading this article -- but Mitch McConnell likes the idea, so, heck, I say give it a shot!

 

https://apnews.com/article/us-m1-abrams-tanks-ukraine-russia-249de5c301a9bf83b5f3ac2182076a02?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01 

Finally, I like to keep track of the leftist ramblings of Robert Reich, because a) he's so adorably tiny, and b) he's an effective spokesman for hardcore "progressive" intellectuals and party insiders.  That being said, does Reich support Biden for reelection in 2024?  Not very emphatically, as you'll see here.  That could signify real challenges for our Gerontocrat-in-Chief...

https://apnews.com/article/us-m1-abrams-tanks-ukraine-russia-249de5c301a9bf83b5f3ac2182076a02?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01

DOES NOT COMPUTE

 

Friends, one of the most troubling and exciting fields these days is A.I. -- artificial intelligence.  Its capabilities are, quite simply, growing by leaps and bounds.  The best supercomputers can now complete complex creative tasks that previously only high-qualified geniuses (like me) could manage.  Yikes!!!  It is frankly foreseeable that supercomputers will soon be preferred over professors by many college students.  Supercomputers are continuously updating and expanding their knowledge and skill sets.  Unlike stick-in-the-mud professors, who only know how to teach in one style, supercomputers can modulate the form of knowledge delivery based on the preferences and attributes of the pupil.  Best of all, while one supercomputer teaches you English Lit, another supercomputer can write your term paper for you -- and it can probably make that paper more transcendently beautiful than a Shakespearean sonnet, or, if you prefer, exactly like a Shakespearean sonnet.  Neat-o!  Will the need for the human intellect evaporate altogether?  That seems unlikely.  What does seem likely, however, is that, just as much unskilled work has already been rendered obsolete by mechanization, in the future much skilled work, even highly specialized work, will get the same treatment, courtesy of A.I.  Fewer and fewer actual humans will be required to produce not only goods but also great works of literature, artistic masterpieces, and even stirring editorials and presidential addresses.  The bottom line is that we are likely to enjoy more leisure and prosperity than ever before -- and, thanks to our friendly neighborhood supercomputer, we will be able to use that leisure and prosperity to create for ourselves not just islands of material abundance, but also virtual and actual oases of aesthetic and intellectual brilliance.  Want, for instance, to spend your afternoon chatting with Einstein about relativity, or St. Augustine about sin?  A.I. has you covered -- and might frankly do a better job of it than Einstein or St. Augustine ever could (especially in their present states of decomposition)...  It truly is a brave new world!!!

 

(My advice: if you're worried about robots and supercomputers putting you out of a job, get rich and quit your job preemptively!  Whatever technological changes bedevil us, I guarantee you that the owners of capital will do just fine, thank you very much!)

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/tech/chatgpt-future-davos

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/how-chatgpt-will-destabilize-white-collar-work/ar-AA16yBZM 

In other news, here's an excellent article by a pal-o'-mine about the ethical questions raised by Sleepy Joe's document controversy.  Did Biden mishandle secret materials?  Duh.  What may be more interesting is the corrupt world in which he, his family, and his associates moved in the years before he became president.  The more we learn about Biden, Inc., the more revolting it sounds.

https://thespectator.com/topic/the-democrat-think-tank-implicated-by-bidens-classified-documents-penn-biden-center/

He's Still Got It!

 

Friends, as the USA teeters on the brink of default (yawn!) and as the moral/spiritual foundations of Western Civilization steadily erode (eek!), we should make time to celebrate "the little things", like astronaut Buzz Aldrin's recent marriage (his fourth) at the age of 93!  Holy moly!  He wed a woman 30 years his junior, who looks more like she's 50 years his junior -- not that ole Buzz is nearly as wizened as you'd expect, mind you.  The takeaway here is: if you're wondering what it takes to get a hot date these days, try walking on the moon.  Chicks seem to dig it...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64359316

"May the Best Woman Win"?

 

Friends, Donald Trump is currently the only declared candidate for president in either party, but it sure sounds like a lot of Republicans, including Nikki Haley, think he's vulnerable.  Haley appears, in fact, to be inches from announcing her own candidacy.  As she says herself, "Stay tuned"!  My take: I'm certainly not opposed to a woman president, assuming she's a steely alpha female like, oh, Margaret Thatcher, but Haley didn't last long as U.N. Ambassador, and I'm not yet convinced that she's ready for the world's top job.  In the meantime, I wish her well.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/01/19/nikki_haley_on_2024_run_can_i_be_that_leader_yes_i_think_i_can.html

In other news, the House will be investigating the circumstances under which Joe Biden stashed numerous secret and confidential documents in his office and his home, but of perhaps even greater interest is the fact that the DOJ apparently was content to keep these questions entirely under wraps.  What's more, that raises the tantalizing issue of who spilled the beans, and why.  Do I think Sleepy Joe will be held accountable for his criminal acts?  Heck no.  He's a Democrat, which means he always gets the benefit of the doubt.  His political future, on the other hand, may well be in jeopardy.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/19/report-white-house-doj-agreed-hide-classified-document-scandal/

Nowhere to Go But Down

 

Friends, my latest article is a reflection on all that is going horribly wrong for China's leaders, who heretofore seemed to be enjoying a charmed existence.  China is entering a new phase of its history, when its seemingly inexorable rise to greatness is replaced by a series of giant question marks, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.  See if you don't agree...

Red China is on the Ropes – Beware!

Chicom haters (like Yours Truly) will be chuffed at the recent spate of bad news for China's hard-line communist leaders, but at the same time the world as a whole must view these developments with a certain amount of trepidation, simply because adversity is a foreign country, as it were, for many Chinese bigwigs, and how they will react to disappointment and frustration is anyone's guess.

Most recently, the Chinese government announced that the country's population is, for the first time since the 1960s, falling. What's more, ultra-low fertility rates mean that the Chinese have reached the same demographic dead end that we face in the West: unless we import oodles of immigrants, our population levels will soon enter a death spiral, and able-bodied workers (or factory drones, as the Chinese prefer to think of them) will be hard to find.

In addition, supply chain disruptions, COVID craziness, and international mortification over Chinese tyranny have all combined to stifle China's economic growth rates, which have, as everyone knows, been incredibly robust for decades. China's GDP grew only 3% in 2022, putting the country in the same economic doldrums that we face here. This begs the question: will the Chinese people continue to accept CCP hegemony/thuggery when the party loses its trump card of never-ending and rapid improvements in the standard of living?

The Chinese leadership, in the wake of massive, nationwide protests, recently found the courage (or was it the cowardice?) to abandon its insane “zero COVID” policies, permitting the Chinese people much greater freedom. Its reward was a huge spike in COVID cases and COVID deaths. China is thus facing a reckoning with COVID, in the here and now, that most Western countries had months or even years ago. Its medical infrastructure, which was never all that strong, is straining to cope.

Communist China is also facing unprecedented levels of criticism and scorn internationally. According to a Pew poll, 82% of Americans now view China unfavorably. Not since the era of Mao has Red China been held in greater contempt in the West. What's more, this onslaught is bewilderingly multifaceted, from the Chinese perspective.

China's government is blamed for everything from the genesis of COVID, to pollution and carbon emissions, to ravaging the civil liberties of its citizens, to exterminating the Uighurs, to pilfering Western government and corporate secrets and technology, to corrupting and/or intimidating politicians, celebrities, and opinion leaders worldwide, to threatening the peaceful people of Taiwan, and much, much more! So far, none of this criticism has led to meaningful sanctions, much less to serious preparations for military conflict, but it is leading to countermeasures against Red Chinese influence operations, espionage, property acquisition and corporate takeovers, and, perhaps most alarmingly for the Chinese themselves, it is causing some mega-corporations to question whether they want to do business so extensively within and with a country whose reputation is so checkered, and whose future is so beclouded with uncertainty and dread.

All in all, things aren't looking so hot for the Chicoms, who until recently seemed to be on one of history's greatests “rolls” of all time. For those who have tended to view the rise of China and the expected global hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party with apprehension, verging on horror, these developments seem overwhelmingly positive, at first glance. Perhaps it was always inevitable that China would come down to earth, at some stage, and probably it is for the best that it has, BUT...

The giant caveat to the humbling of Red China is this: a cornered animal is always a dangerous one, and thus it is possible that the Chinese leadership will respond to all the aforementioned headwinds in an aggressive or destructive way. Stripped of its legitimacy, its reputation for competency, and the aura of historical inevitability that have shielded the CCP for so long, party leaders may lash out militarily in an effort to refocus Chinese public opinion on external threats, or they may greatly intensify efforts aimed at internal repression, which could cause even greater revulsion in, and estrangement from, the world community.

In the worst case scenario (or is it the best case?), even the social and political stability of China could be jeopardized, with essentially incalculable, but deeply sobering, ramifications for the global economy and for world peace. Lest we forget, China has enormous leverage internationally, given its financial and manufacturing strength, and it has vast arsenals of shiny new weapons, including ICBMs, which, heretofore, the Chicoms have felt no compelling urge or need to utilize. If China implodes, however, all bets are off.

One is reminded of the old saying, “May you live in interesting times”, because Red China's current stumbles are the very definition of “interesting”: indeed, the fate of all of us is bound up in the decision-making of a small band of corrupt, pseudo-Marxist, and decidedly peculiar party bureaucrats in Beijing, who – God help us! – could easily steer their massive country, and the world as a whole, into an abyss, if they and we are not very careful.

Fingers crossed!

Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.

And here it is at Townhall:

https://townhall.com/columnists/nicholaswaddy/2023/01/20/red-china-is-on-the-ropes-beware-n2618526

Royal Flush

Friends, you'll definitely want to listen in to this week's Newsmaker Show, in which Brian and I discuss in detail the merits of monarchy as a form of government and as a social institution.  In the process, we consider the damage that Harry and Meghan are currently doing to the British monarchy.  In addition, Brian and I hash over the byzantine political ramifications of the Joe Biden classified documents scandal, which sure looks like a stratagem by Biden haters to facilitate his retirement after one term in office -- and thus to ensure that someone stronger and more electable will serve as the Dem standard-bearer in 2024.  Lastly, we consider the sins of George Santos and whether they require his resignation from the House of Representatives.  All in all, it's a very stimulating show, and you'd be well advised to tune in!

https://wlea.net/newsmaker-january-18-2023-dr-nick-waddy/

 

***

 

In other news, here's a very interesting article on how deeply enmeshed Apple's business operations are with communist China.  Not all companies are as exposed as Apple, of course, but the main point here is an important one: "decoupling" Western economies from Chinese manufacturing would be very difficult, and that which is very difficult is, frankly, unlikely to happen at all.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/74f7e284-c047-4cc4-9b7a-408d40611bfa?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9 

Perhaps you've heard that a committee of lunatics (the only people Californians will listen to) has recommended reparations on a truly massive scale for black people -- sorry, Black people.  I don't think there's much danger that the proposals will be implemented, but race-conscious policies and expenditures are being contemplated, and implemented, across the country, so this "movement", if I may call it that, must be taken seriously, and politicians and judges must do everything in their power to slap it down.  Come to think of it, voters might want to take the lead, because our socio-political elite certainly can't be trusted on issues of race and "social justice".

https://nypost.com/2023/01/17/reparation-abomination-would-prove-to-be-unaffordable-and-unfair/

The Corvette Defense

 

Friends, when you're awkwardly found guilty of mishandling secret documents yourself, after you've lambasted your predecessor for doing the same thing, there's really only one course of action to follow: remind voters that you own a Corvette, and are therefore entitled to do whatever, to whomever, you want.  Indeed, Joe Biden has acted throughout his life as though he's entitled to power, privilege, and public acclaim, and anyone who dares even to question his primacy is a white supremacist, Nazi, MAGA scumbag.  Will that sort of brainless bravado work in this case?  It might, if the Dem leadership and the mainstream media play along.  Will they?  That depends largely on whether they regard Biden as a strong potential candidate in 2024.  They're clearly on the fence.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/latest-biden-troubles-reelection

 

In other news, for a variety of reasons, only some of them revolving around wokeness, enrollment in colleges and universities is way down.  The only hope for many institutions of higher learning, in fact, is a giant federal bailout -- or, I should say, a second bailout, because a big one already washed over higher ed during the recent pandemic.  Could some colleges and universities boost their appeal to potential students by being less hostile to their conservative and/or Christian worldview?  I guess so.  A degree of nuttiness has always been a liability for any institution dominated by intellectuals, however, so my opinion would be that it is not wokeness and intolerance, per se, that are the main drivers of declining enrollment, but rather the perception that tertiary degrees are increasingly too costly, and convey too few benefits in the job market, to justify the time, effort, and expense required to obtain them.  I can't say I disagree with this logic, either, even though my livelihood depends on a whole lot of poorly prepared high school students choosing to pursue useless degrees which, in any case, few of them will ever complete.  Bottom line: a college degree costs more than ever before, and it signals less than ever before, in terms of one's wisdom and abilities.  If more and more young people are finding better things to do with themselves, I say more power to them!

https://nypost.com/2023/01/16/how-the-wokeness-it-pushes-could-destroy-higher-ed/

 

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/01/17/woke-stars-shine-colorado-college-astrophysics-prof-claims-the-study-of-space-is-racist-sexist/ 

Finally, Red China is on the ropes politicially, economically, and medically, but it also has demographic headaches that will only accumulate with time.  This is good news for those who, like me, loathe the Chicoms, but it's bad news for those who, like me, want to avoid WWIII.  That's because a struggling China is a dangerous China!  Beware.

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/01/17/china-finally-admits-to-first-population-decline-since-great-leap-forward/

The Truth About Kennedy and Nixon

 

Friends, this article naturally caught my eye.  The suggestion is that Richard Nixon had intimate knowledge of the CIA's involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy -- and that he was simultaneously unaware of the CIA's involvement in the Watergate burglary.  Now, we have to keep in mind that "involvement in" does not equate with "responsibility for".  There's very little that goes on in Washington, D.C., and internationally, that the CIA isn't tangentially connected to, but that doesn't mean that CIA spooks secretly run the world.  In any case, I've long since accepted that, whatever the truth of the JFK assassination happens to be, we're unlikely to get any closer to it than we are now.  Prove me wrong!

https://rogerstone.substack.com/p/nixon-threatened-to-reveal-the-cias

 

In other news, the outrage over the "Twitter Files" belies the fact that the Democratic Party and the Biden White House have been actively seeking to curate content on a wide variety of social media sites, not just Twitter.  Today we learned that, not only does Facebook suppress content that is true (but politically incorrect), but it does so, in many cases, at the behest of Biden Administration officials.  But, of course, neither Facebook nor the Democrats will see any problem in this.  They will say that it's done, America, "for your own good".  Now, if and when Republicans retake control of the White House, one wonders whether social media execs and administration officials will be quite as chummy.  I mean, I bet DJT would have loved to counsel Facebook, Twitter, and Google on all the "Trump misinformation" that they ought to have been suppressing.  Instead, naturally, they were amplifying said "malarkey" -- and, with the exception of Twitter, they show no sign of ever changing course.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/01/12/not-just-misinformation-emails-white-house-facebook-admits-suppressing-often-true-content-covid-19-vaccines/

 

Lastly, Hunter Biden is a real piece of work!  I guess we knew that already, but the shocking truth is that this overprivileged dirtbag is actively trying to a) reduce his child support payments to his "baby momma", and b) prevent his love child from taking his last name.  What a great Dad, huh?  You can't make this stuff up!!!  Can you imagine if any of the Trump kids had done 5% of the crap that Hunter Biden gets up to?  Oy!

 

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/hunter-biden-daughter-last-name/2023/01/14/id/1104441/ 

From President to Prisoner?

 

Friends, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have more than one thing in common, but what jumps to my mind is the fact that both are former presidents who face the prospect of adversarial prosecution for "crimes" that consist of, at the end of the day, nothing more than telling the establishment what it doesn't want to hear.  Trump is said to have "incited" the January 6th "insurrection" by complaining about the fairness (or lack thereof) of the 2020 election, while Bolsonaro is blamed for the recent storming of the Brazilian Congress and Supreme Court on roughly the same grounds: he made his supporters mad about the election results, and therefore he's to blame for anything and everything they do.  It's poppycock, yes, but it's momentously important poppycock, because it could lead both men to the clink in the near future.  And, needless to say, any democracy that predictably places former leaders in jail, to satisfy the grievances of current leaders, is not much of a democracy at all.  This bears watching!!!

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/brazil-bolsonaro-politics/2023/01/13/id/1104378/

 

What trumped up charges will be laid against...Trump?  We don't know for sure, but mishandling of classified documents seemed like a leading contender until recently.  That's because it increasingly appears that Joe Biden is guilty of the same offense, and, if that's the case, then surely mishandling of documents is no big deal, right?  The DOJ has some tough decisions to make!  One wonders, incidentally, whether what's going on with Biden right now is really something like a soft coup in the Democratic Party -- a last-ditch effort to prevent Sleepy Joe from running for reelection and, thereby, pulling every Democrat into the abyss along with him...  Hey, if I was an elite Dem, I'd be maneuvering Comrade Biden into retirement as best I could.  He barely won in 2020, with every establishment figure and institution carrying water for him 24/7.  Thus, in 2024, he's anything but a sure thing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64270906

Joe "The Gander" Biden

 

Friends, in a hilarious twist that only Washington, D.C. could produce, it turns out that one of the offices of Joe Biden (you know the guy: he's President Xi's longtime travel buddy) is a repository for classified material -- of the sort that the DOJ is now preparing to indict Donald Trump for possessing, and of the sort that triggered an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago leading up to the 2022 midterm elections.  Lo and behold, this information was known before the midterms, but was only just disclosed.  All this stinks to high heaven, needless to say, but the media is spinning it furiously.  Holding on to sensitive government documents is a capital offense when Trump does it, but it's no big deal when Sleepy Joe does it.  I mean, the distinction is obvious!  Will these revelations give the DOJ any pause in pursuing criminal charges against Trump for the mishandling of secret documents?  Possibly.  My view, however, would be that hypocrisy has never held the lefties back in the past, and it probably won't in this case either.  And, in any event, the DOJ is considering a very wide range of potential charges against Trump.  They can, if need be, simply work their way down the list until they find something of which Joe Biden is not also guilty... 

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/10/joe-biden-claims-surprised-discovered-boxes-classified-documents-old-private-office/ 

In other news, my visit to the Sunshine State continues to be a delight, and today I took in the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine.  I hope to resume a more intensive regimen of blogging very soon!

Zero Degrees of Separation

 

Friends, I've been somewhat out of the loop during my Florida vacation, but I hear that Kevin Bacon was finally elected Speaker of the House on the 15,000th ballot.  Hooray!  I can't think of a more sensible or patriotic choice.  He's ideally suited to unify our fractured nation.  He's a Hollywood actor, so conservatives will hate him.  He's a white male, so progressives will hate him.  Isn't it about time that we started hating together, in a bipartisan fashion?  I have high hopes!  Welcome to the party, Kevin.

In other news, even while luxuriating amidst Florida's various tropical delights I found time to sound off on the second anniversary of the January 6th "insurrection" and what a shameless travesty the work of the Janaury 6th Committee was.  Check it out:

https://sputniknews.com/20230106/january-6-two-years-on-what-dems-would-risk-by-trying-to-prosecute-trump-after-nothingburger-probe-1106068275.html

 

And here I am sunning myself in DeSantis country.  Why can't we all be more like Florida?  Is that asking so much?

 

Get Lost, Mr. Jefferson!

 

Friends, we're all familiar with American higher ed's headlong rush to abandon standardized testing, and, as such, to base admissions not on objective ability, but on subjective qualities that will yield, it is assumed, a more diverse student body.  The philosophy is simple: merit be damned, because we need more blacks and Hispanics, pronto!  Well, the same approach is gaining more and more acceptance in elementary and secondary education too.  To the extent that public ed used to practice "streaming" and "selective admissions", in order to group high-achieving students together to maximize their access to high quality education, now the emphasis is instead on "social justice" and increasing access for students of color, regardless of whether they are capable of taking full advantage, and regardless of the deleterious effect it may have on everyone's education if teachers have to pitch their lessons to students of wildly different levels of ability.  The upshot?  Excellence is less and less relevant to modern educators and education bureaucrats.  A "good" school is not a school with brilliant teachers or brilliant students -- it's a school with the "correct" demographic balance of teachers and students, all of whom are single-mindedly woke and getting woker.  Whether anyone, at the end of the day, can read and write, or add and subtract, is beside the point.  Welcome to the "new normal"!

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/01/04/with_schools_ditching_merit_for_diversity_families_of_high_achievers_say_were_out_of_here_872909.html

 

In other news, as the drama of the election of a new House Speaker plays out in Washington, D.C., a similar farce played out in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where it looks like Democrats have failed to secure control of the lower house of the state's legislature -- which is a rare piece of good news in PA.  It's not exactly a "red wave", but it blunts the "victory" that the Dems claim to have won in 2022, and that's something.

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/pennsylvania-democrats-upended-as-house-speaker-flips-to-independent 

If At First You Don't Succeed...

 

Friends, Democrats lost the Congressional race in New York's 3rd district, but they're not going to take an electoral defeat lying down!  No, Sir!  They're going to keep battering away at George Santos until he resigns or gets hauled away to prison (preferably both, actually).  Why?  Because he's a GREAT BIG FIBBER!!!  How dare he?  I mean, no Democrat in the whole history of Democrats has ever told a lie, and now THIS?  My latest article puts Santos's prevarications in their proper partisan perspective.  Someone needed to!

That's Rich, Democrats!

Anyone who gets their news from the mainstream media has been deluged with non-stop coverage of the résumé “embellishments” that helped to propel George Santos into office as a Congressman from Long Island. Santos has apologized for the fabrications, as he most certainly should, but leftists are still out for blood. They claim, with a straight face, that Santos should resign for his lack of truthfulness, and that it may even be appropriate to prosecute him for...something. What Democrats forget is that lying, while unethical, is protected speech in these United States, and, if we were ever to criminalize lying, or throw everyone out of Congress who has prevaricated, its halls would be empty – of Democrats, in particular.

Many have already exhaustively documented the countless misrepresentations that Joe Biden has made about his record, his family background, and his opponents. Biden routinely says things that aren't true. Either Biden is deliberately lying, or his mind is so addled by senility or self-regard that he lacks the ability to discern what is true and what is false. Either way, Biden would seem to be disqualified as a potential public figure, much less as the leader of the free world. And yet, according to progressives, Biden is a true American hero! None of this adds up.

Democrats' hypocrisy on matters of truth and falsehood goes far beyond their high regard for the serial liar Joe Biden, however. The modern Democratic Party and the progressive movement are built on a tissue of lies. This can be seen with ample clarity in their disingenuous claims and tactics in the recent midterm elections, which even CNN has criticized.

For starters, Democrats castigated their Republican opponents as “insurrectionists” and traitors, even though no insurrection took place in January 2021 and not a single person has been charged with, or been convicted of, insurrection. The sole purpose of the January 6^th Committee was to misrepresent what happened on that fateful day in order to vilify Republicans, to conceal the share of responsibility borne by Congressional Democrats for the frightful lack of security on Capitol Hill, to conflate honest questions about the conduct of the 2020 election with violent opposition to American “democracy”, and to capitalize politically on a national tragedy. Nancy Pelosi excluded Republicans nominated by the Republican leadership in the House from the January 6^th Committee precisely because she did not want anyone on it who might challenge the falsehoods and misrepresentations that would pervade its work. (Presumably, Democrats and progressives everywhere adore censorship for the same reason: they hate it when anyone points out that they are wrong.)

Democrats compounded these lies by trying to convince the electorate in 2022 that the Supreme Court, through the Dobbs decision, had ended “abortion rights”. It did no such thing, and access to abortion for the vast majority of Americans has either remained the same or has been enhanced in recent months.

They went on to promise Americans with college debt that portions of it would be forgiven, knowing full well that President Biden's debt forgiveness scheme was unlikely to pass muster with the courts and with the Constitution itself. They banked many votes in the midterms on the basis of that tactic of bait and switch.

Democrats simultaneously denied that the country faces any significant problems with illegal immigration or crime, even disingenuously suggesting that the current surge in both is Donald Trump's fault, or, conversely, a figment of the imagination of Fox News editors. Thus, the worst “lies” of Democrats and progressives in 2022 turned out to be ones of omission – of refusing to acknowledge the reality and legitimacy of voters' heartfelt concerns. Sadly, they got away with it, more often than not.

Lastly, leading up to the midterms, Democrats did what they always do: they spent public funds lavishly on social programs and pork barrel boondoggles alike, all while claiming that their “generosity” was a sign of their human decency. On the contrary, their fiscal improvidence is one of the main causes of the inflation now plaguing us, and will, if continued, bankrupt the next generation – not metaphorically, but literally. Someday Americans will learn the hard way that the progressive welfare state is itself a lie, writ large.

All in all, George Santos's résumé-building fabrications pale in comparison to the complex web of falsehoods that undergirds the Democratic Party and its progressive ideology. Santos should apologize every chance he gets – and he should stay in office, to join in the work of rebuilding the public's trust in the effectiveness and integrity of the federal government. It is the Democrats who, over the last two years, have left this trust hanging by a thread.

Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.

 

And here it is at World Net Daily:

 

https://www.wnd.com/2023/01/dems-laughable-outrage-george-santos/ 

The Shorter, The Better?

 

Friends, the credibility of the New York Times is shrinking to the vanishing point.  It recently published an editorial arguing (with a straight face) that short people are better than tall people, and that we should all prefer diminutive mates, sire small children, and eat sparingly so as to stunt our growth.  This will improve our health, our moral standing, and of course will also limit the burden we place on Mother Earth -- the deciding factor, no doubt.  The arguments contained in this article are pure balderdash, needless to say.  Is the old cachet possessed by the more altitudinous among us somewhat unfair, and irrelevant to our basic worth?  That is certainly possible, but of course leftists and the Times always have to take things way beyond what's reasonable.  The races can't be "equal" -- no, whites are bad and blacks are good.  The sexes can't be "equal" -- no, men are definitely inferior, and women, if any can be identified, deserve to inherit the earth.  Are tall and short people equally capable of achieving goodness and greatness?  Again, no, we have to denigrate the tall and lionize the short!  In a way, the Times is just following the standard Marxist/Manichean playbook, but in this case it's doing so to a point of utter absurdity.  It won't be the last time -- that I can promise you!  Leftists have proven that they are capable of almost limitless inversions of common sense.  Be all that as it may, if you happen to agree with the Times that coupling with a dwarf is a potent form of virtue-signaling, I say: more power to you!  At least you'd be coupling, and that's a start.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/02/nyt-attacks-heightism-calls-mate-short-people-save-earth/

 

In other news, Mitch McConnell will be starting off the new year right, by which I mean left, by which I mean wrong.  He'll be attending an event with President Biden to "celebrate" their bipartisan commitment to spending infrastructure dollars that our country doesn't have.  Boo!

 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-to-kick-off-2023-with-rare-joint-appearance-with-mcconnell 

Finally, Tesla sales are up 40% in 2022, and yet its stock price fell 45% in the second half of the year.  Figure that one out!  Seems to me that the market doesn't appreciate Musk's activism on behalf of free speech.  Hey, I get it -- all those pesky "rights" that Americans keep claiming can really get in the way of profits sometimes.  Nonetheless, I hope Musk keeps his eye on the prize.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-reports-131-million-deliveries-in-2022-growth-of-40-over-last-year/ar-AA15TGEv

Socialism Triumphant!!! Will the Living Envy the Dead?

 

Friends, the new year is starting off on a sour note, as "Lula", the corrupt Marxist huckster, is sworn in as Brazil's president (again).  Is he a Bolshevik scumbag?  Sure...but he hates all the right people, so all is forgiven.  Poor Brazil.  As Bolsonaro says, "Battles are lost, but we will not lose the war."  I hope he's right.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64138739

 

In closely related news, human composting -- that is, turning your deceased loved ones into soil -- is now legal in my home state of New York.  It's supposedly kinder to the environment, which I know will be a big concern to me when I'm pushing up daisies...  Now, if only we could convince the lefties that dying sooner rather than later is the ultimate form of progressive virtue-signaling...  I'd say we're halfway there!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64140571