POLITICO has decided that Liz Truss has already beaten Rishi Sunak in the September 5 contest for UK Prime Minister resigned by Boris Johnson

 

Brave new world: The first 100 days of Liz Truss’ Britain

LOL, there was nothing successful about Nebraska's Covid strategy: With 2,169 deaths per million, if it were a country it's worse than France, 38th in the world for Covid deaths as of today

 Inside Nebraska's Surprisingly Effective Covid Strategy...

We won't have Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan to kick around anymore

It's amazing how the new Democrat redistricting law was able to bump off a Republican who has been in Congress since 1986 when beating him fair and square in an election never worked.

That said, Bill Huizenga better represents West Michigan conservatism than Upton ever did, but the redrawn district may mean he'll have a tougher time of it in country club Republican Berrien County.

GOP Rep. Fred Upton to retire :

... redistricting put Upton on a collision course with Huizenga for the newly drawn district.

Drudge is promoting Putin analysis by two women who spew psychobabble and illogic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiona Hill at Politico https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340

and Amy Knight at The Daily Beast https://news.yahoo.com/russian-people-may-starting-think-092222195.html .

Fiona Hill can't make up her mind: "Putin is increasingly operating emotionally" but "there's been a logical, methodical plan that goes back a very long way".  Then she takes it all back at the end and says Putin didn't "initially set off to do all of this" despite the plan that goes back a very long way but his "feelings of loss, they've all been there" since the dissolution of the USSR, so he is operating emotionally. 

Got it? 

Amy Knight is similarly confused: "Hitler and Stalin were crazy by any psychiatric standard" but "Khrushchev—though volatile and impulsive—was apparently a rational actor, not consumed by the historical grudges and the need to show off his masculine credentials that seem to obsess Putin." Except dictators are all alike: "First of all, like any dictator, Putin does not feel confident of his hold on power".

Meanwhile the Russian people are just mind-numbed robots according to Amy, but they are our only hope: "Russians are conditioned to say they approve of their leader when there is no alternative" you see, but "hopefully, Russians themselves will take action and stop their leader".

And to underscore Amy's illogic, even though she references Putin's insane nuclear threat involving "consequences we have never seen in our entire history" which were made as the invasion began, somehow it was the subsequent "Ukrainian resistance stronger than expected" and crippling "Western sanctions" which are "probably why Putin resorted to the insanity of his nuclear threat".

"She's just pulling it out of her ass". -- Sigmund Freud

Judge Red Jakoff throws out Sarah Palin's libel suit vs. New York Times while jury still deliberating

 Commie wanker.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/14/palin-new-york-times-judge-ruling-00008719

Axios finally updated its Variant Tracker: So far "Delta" still dominates in the US, with Omicron most prevalent in Louisiana at just shy of 27%

Check it out here.

Politico reported last week that the CDC had to climb down about its estimate of the prevalence of Omicron in the US.

 

It had originally estimated prevalence of 73.2% in the US on Dec 18, but revised that down to just 22.5%.

 

Quite the doozy, that.

 

This was very amusing coming as it did with all the other messaging shifts last week:

Ditch the cloth masks for N95s;

Walensky at CDC claiming suddenly that PCR tests are unreliable;

You need only 5 days of quarantine, not ten, because, you know, Omicron is different;

Mr. I'm Going to Shut Down the Virus blurting out that there's no federal solution;

And Fauci suddenly admitting the distinction between being admitted to hospital for Covid as opposed to just with it.

LOL, The Grauniad thinks it's in the Vanguard of the press, having few scruples about printing Trump's four years filled with swearing, obviously doesn't read POLITICO

Here where it can't even bring itself to spell them out:

In remarks to diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday night, Donald Trump called the American media “crooked ba**ards” and Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a “fu**ing idiot”. ...

Trump’s penchant for swearing is well-known, to the extent that his four-year presidency prompted soul-searching among some US media outlets about which words could properly be printed.

The Guardian has long had few such scruples.

 

POLITICO in October:

Behind closed doors, the former Catholic school boy is quite profane, according to several current and former aides.

“When he gets going he definitely gets going,” said one White House official.

In meetings with aides, Biden’s vulgarities include but are not limited too: “Fuck them,” “What the fuck are we doing?” “Why the fuck isn’t this happening?” “bullshit,” “dammit,” or just simply: “fuck,” according to several current and former aides.

When pushing aides for better answers, he will sometimes say, “don't bullshit a bullshitter.”

Some say they find Biden’s foul mouth endearing — a part of his everyman appeal that made him president. One former aide noted that’s true just as long as you’re not on the receiving end of it.

By contrast, Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ favorite swear word is “motherfuck-ah,” [emphasis on the ahhhhh] according to someone who worked closely with her. She also alluded to this preference in a past interview. Her office did not respond.

Bi-partisan Senate infrastructure plan authorizing $550 billion in new spending passed the House late last night and goes to Biden for his signature

The bill was opposed in the House by almost all Republicans, and by six far-left Democrats who were outmaneuvered by thirteen moderate Republicans who threw their support to the plan, which 19 Republican US Senators had voted for earlier this summer. 

The House progressives had insisted that the infrastructure plan be voted on together with Biden's social spending plan in order to force moderate Democrats to go along with the latter. The House Republican votes for the Senate bill ended up thwarting that linkage, making it even more likely that the House version of the social spending plan will have to be much less ambitious.

A small group of House Democrats have insisted the Congressional Budget Office score the impact of the separate social spending plan, which would have been standard operating procedure under Republicans but which Democrats under Pelosi have been avoiding until now. They don't give a damn about the true costs. They've even claimed absurdly a $3.5 trillion social spending plan will cost NOTHING. Ha ha ha ha ha.

That ranks among the most shameless attempts to change reality through a talking point ever attempted.

Whatever comes out of the House on that will face the hard scrutiny of Democrat Senators Manchin and Sinema regardless. 

Roll Call:

The bipartisan bill would reauthorize surface transportation and water programs for five years, adding $550 billion in new spending. 

It includes $110 billion for roads, bridges and major projects; $39 billion for transit and $66 billion for rail; $65 billion for broadband; $65 billion for the electric grid; $55 billion to upgrade water infrastructure and $25 billion for airports.

WaPo:

The bill includes more than $110 billion to replace and repair roads, bridges and highways, and $66 billion to boost rail, making it the most substantial such investment in the country’s passenger and commercial network since the creation of Amtrak about half a century ago. Lawmakers provided $55 billion to improve the nation’s water supply and replace lead pipes, $60 billion to modernize the power grid and billions in additional sums to expand speedy Internet access nationwide.

Many of the investments aim to promote green energy and combat some of the country’s worst sources of pollution. At Biden’s behest, for example, lawmakers approved $7.5 billion to build out a national network of vehicle charging stations. Reflecting the deadly, costly consequences of global warming, the package also allocates another roughly $50 billion to respond to emergencies including droughts, wildfires and major storms.

CENTCOM has no comment today about this revelation that it has given a list to the Taliban of the people the US wants evacauated from Kabul

 

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that's prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

More.

Today's Tuesday conservatism over at Real Clear Politics is so ho-hum

In the line-up today at Real Clear Politics is one Buck Sexton, who tells us in "Following Rush Limbaugh" . . . not very much.

Is there any there there? is the question I have after reading this introduction to the man who is supposed to be the conservative in the duo taking over for Rush Limbaugh.

Since radio is a word business and this piece reads more like an apologia for his elevation to his new role than a taste of what to expect, it's not a good sign that this Buckaroo calls Rush's opening monologues "severely entertaining".

Is Buck Sexton a Mormon? I mean, this sounds like Mitt Romney, who trotted out his wife to assure Republicans that he was a conservative, and not long after addressed CPAC and called himself "a severely conservative Republican governor".

I know, I know. It's just a coincidence that this Jesuit-trained fellow sounds like the Mormon. But if you have to tell people you thought Rush was severely entertaining, maybe to you he really wasn't. At any rate, severe is not a word which ever came to mind when listening to Rush Limbaugh. 

Then there's Stephen L. Miller, whose Twitter feed is enormously entertaining @redsteeze , but whose prose offerings are, shall we say, stilted? The guy writes like he's got a brick up his ass.

Taking yet another much-deserved whack at CNN's Brian Stelter, Miller not entertainingly resorts to wooden stock phrases like "petty star-gazing", "it should raise eyebrows", "not becoming of anyone", "all fine and good", "all well and good", and "for anyone wondering . . . look no further". With all this lumber neatly stacked in a pile, the final paragraph ends with mistakes like "gleamed off" for "gleaned off" and "who claim to be just as a rigorous and dedicated journalist as Brian".

Yes, Stelter falls far short as a journalist. It's good that a mediocre writer points it out to all the people who obviously ignore Brian Stelter by the millions. It's an easy beat for Miller to cover, but maybe he should move on.

Miller claims to be good at hockey. I hear Clay Travis has left an opening somewhere.

Then there's a Democrat over at The Hill wondering "whatever happened to conservatism?"

When you get to paragraph seven you'll learn that Jan 6 was an "armed insurrection" and, if you're living in reality, you'll stop reading there.

But if you are a glutton for punishment and read to the end, you'll learn that the answer is The John Birch Society finally won the battle for the soul of the Republican Party.

I'm sure the five people still alive who ever knew an actual John Bircher will find that extremely amusing, if for no other reason than "that's what they WANT you to think".

Have a day.

The default position of liberalism is to blame obstruction by reactionaries for republican failure, not the revolutionary impulses of the autocrat

"The republicans made me seize power".

You know whose side they are on when people talk like this. Spengler long ago observed how liberalism is all about tyranny, but does anyone still read him?

"The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is all that Liberalism sets out to be."

The voices opposed to the US Senate filibuster, are, to put it bluntly, not related to our founding.

"However high-minded":

Caesar would soon seize autocratic power, and Cato would commit suicide rather than live under Caesar’s rule. Goodman and Soni argue Cato’s obstructionism — however high-minded — was a contributing factor to the Roman Republic’s collapse. America’s Founding Fathers, however, idolized Cato. George Washington’s soldiers staged a play about Cato at Valley Forge.  Patrick Henry’s famous quote, “Give me liberty of give me death,” is derived from a line in that play.

Pro-life Democrat Dan Lipinski of Illinois is opposed by both Pocahonky and Bernie in the primary March 17th

The left is trying again to root out every last thing which offends in their party.

Story.

It's a veritable cornucopia of 2020 Iowa Caucus debacle headlines this morning

Iowa caucus: Biden campaign blasts Democratic Party over reporting meltdown

Iowa caucuses delays revive concerns and conspiracy theories of Bernie Sanders supporters

SANDERS CAMPAIGN’S INTERNAL CAUCUS NUMBERS SHOW THEM WINNING IOWA, WITH BIDEN A DISTANT FOURTH

Frustration, questions as delays hamper Iowa caucuses

‘A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down

Iowa officially has its first caucus-deciding coin flips of the year

Chaos reigns on Iowa caucus night

Iowa caucuses turnout: Entrance poll shows dip in first-timers

Results for Iowa caucuses delayed as state Democratic Party finds 'inconsistencies'

'It’s a total meltdown': Confusion seizes Iowa as officials struggle to report results

What went wrong: Tech troubles behind delay in Iowa results

Iowa Democrats rush "quality checks" after "inconsistencies"

Iowa Reports No Caucus Winner After ‘Inconsistencies’ Bedevil Count

Iowa Democrats bungle caucuses, infuriate candidates, as reporting app developed by Democrat Party of Tech fails

Hello? Sum ting wong wit da app.

“We have no sense when results might come in," said [Mao fangirl] Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Biden. "We are, as other campaigns are, very concerned with what they might release: the alignment numbers are not adding up." “It’s a total meltdown,” she added. ...

Sanders' supporters were already crying foul. [WaPo slogan stealer] Rep. Ilhan Omar, who campaigned for Sanders in Iowa this weekend, tweeted, "Democracy dies in the darkness!”

Elizabeth Warren's campaign and its allies barely contained their fury at the state party’s bungling of the caucuses. “It’s a mess,” [a trail of tears] campaign manager Roger Lau told reporters. "I think that every single second that passes where we don't get a final result is concerning." ...

The candidates addressed supporters late Monday, not waiting for results. Despite the delay in reporting, Sen. Amy Klobuchar [noted for throwing binders at people] said her campaign knew it was “punching above our weight.” ...

The results delay came after anecdotal reports from precinct caucus chairs early Monday, who said they were having issues with their caucus night reporting apps. The app, developed by the Democratic Party, helps the chairs do the math to help figure out which candidates will meet the viability thresholds Monday night. And it’s a tool to feed the ultimate results to the party in real-time. ...

In Polk County, county Democratic Party chair Sean Bagniewski said only about 20 percent of the chairs would actually be able to use it. “We’re telling everyone to phone it in at this point," Bagniewski said earlier in the day. But that may have set off the next snafu: the phone lines then jammed up. 

More.

Politico article details big-time dark money helping Democrats win in 2018

Story here.

Warren calls Biden a Republican on healthcare, Biden campaign responds: "Warren was a Republican until she was 47 years old"

“Democrats are not going to win by repeating Republican talking points and by dusting off the points of view of the giant insurance companies and the giant drug companies who don't want to see any change in the law that will bite into their profits,” [Warren] said. “If anyone wants to defend keeping those high profits for insurance companies and those high profits for drug companies and not making the top 1 percent pay a fair share in taxes and not making corporations pay a fair share in taxes, then I think they're running in the wrong presidential primary.”

More.

Elizabeth Warren wants to cancel your health insurance culture AND your income tax culture and replace them with socialism

[T]his time, a wholesale government takeover of health insurance would actually be a step toward socialism, which is still viewed more negatively than positively by Americans overall. “You don’t win with a message of socialism in a swing state like Florida,” said Bill Nelson, a former Florida senator and Biden surrogate.

More here.

Creepy Uncle Joe reveals BFD 2.0

BFD 1.0 wasn't such a BFD after all then, now was it?

His proposal sounds an awful lot like the public option plan passed by Nancy Pelosi's US House in 2009, which the US Senate rejected in favor of its plan, which is what we have now, Obamacare.

The problem with the public option plan was that it threatened to undercut private insurance through unfair competition with its immediate access to the limitless deep pockets of the Federal Treasury.

Joe's a Fabian socialist, not a revolutionary, slow walking the country to the guillotine.

Story.

Joe "Middle Class" Biden edging AWAY from the working class because he's gotten rich: He used to be "Lunchbox Joe", but POLITICO seems to know nothing about it

‘Middle-Class Joe’ rakes in millions POLITICO 3/18/19:

He’s repeatedly referred to himself as “Middle-Class Joe” on the campaign trail and in speaking engagements as he publicly mulls whether to run for president. ... “I know I’m called Middle-Class Joe. It’s not meant to be a compliment. It means I’m not sophisticated. But I know what made this country what it is: ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Biden said in Kentucky last year, a refrain he’s used repeatedly for years, including when he floated a potential presidential run in 2017.

5 things Biden pick says about Obama POLITICO 8/23/08:

4. He’s more worried about Lunchbox Joe than Bubba. Obama was not persuaded by arguments that Democrats for the past 60 years have won the presidency only when they've had a Southerner on the ticket. He seems confident he can put a few states in the Old Confederacy in play by stoking African-American turnout. Perhaps. But he also is calculating that his more urgent concern is working-class whites, especially those in the industrial Midwest. Hillary Rodham Clinton clobbered him in these areas — and white men remain very skeptical of him, if you believe the polls (and his people do). At the public unveiling of the ticket Saturday at Springfield, Ill., Obama called Biden a “scrappy kid from Scranton.” 

Tulsi Gabbard throws her hat in the ring

She would be a great future candidate, but needs to run for governor, win and serve before she runs for president. Not knowing this shows she's not such a great candidate.

Tulsi Gabbard to run for president