Posts Tagged ‘Mike Rowe’

LinkSwarm for May 6, 2022

Friday, May 6th, 2022

Inflation is soaring, Democrats are lying, and more MSM pedophiles are exposed. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!


  • Slow Joe Biden is hoping voters will ignore all that inflation on his watch. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.

    Apparently, the Biden administration’s approach is to just insist that the economy is doing great and hope people believe it, despite their mounting frustration every time they buy groceries, out to eat, or fill up their tank. On the day President Biden took office, retail prices for gasoline averaged $2.38 per gallon. This morning, they are $4.19 — not all that different from the $4.20 they were a month ago….

    By and large, Democrats just don’t want to discuss or acknowledge inflation — at least not in their campaign ads:

    And as of Friday, [Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim] Ryan was one of seven Democratic candidates who have run ads this year that mentioned inflation, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. By contrast, dozens of Republican candidates and allied groups have done the same. In polls, Americans have cited inflation as a top issue.

    “Burying your head in the sand,” Mr. Ryan said, “is not the way to approach it.” Asked about the biggest challenges facing his party, he replied, “A response to the inflation piece is a big hurdle.”

    To Democrats, inflation is like Bruno: We just don’t talk about it.

    Snip.

    With poll after poll showing that inflation is foremost in voters’ minds, you would think that the president would be holding regular events focused on the problem and showcasing what his administration is doing to solve it.

    Not seeing much of that, are you?

  • Inflation is hurting Biden and Democrats so badly that even CNN has noticed. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of inflation, truckers are not buying that “Putin Price Hike” blather as diesel hits an all-time high.

    “I get video almost every day now from people who we featured on ‘Dirty Jobs” and ‘How America Works.’

    “They’re just sending me videos of them at the gas pump and some of them are filling up 18-wheelers. And, I’m not kidding you, $1,100, $1,200.

    “Most people, all we can think about is the price for us at a relative terms know it’s awful.

    “When you put $1,200 in your gas tank and just six months ago it was costing you $600 or 700, the exponential reality of it is starting to sink in. You just can’t walk that back. It touches every single thing that matters in this country. From food production to transportation … all of it,” Rowe explained.

  • Hmmmm:

  • How a George Soros group is writing Biden Administration policy.

    A secretive group backed by millions of dollars from liberal billionaire George Soros is working behind the scenes with President Biden’s administration to shape policy, documents reviewed by Fox News show.

    Governing for Impact (GFI), the veiled group, boasts in internal memos of implementing more than 20 of its regulatory agenda items as it works to reverse Trump-era deregulations by zeroing in on education, environmental, health care, housing and labor issues.

    “Open Society is proud to support Governing for Impact’s efforts to protect American workers, consumers, patients, students and the environment through policy reform,” Tom Perriello, executive director of Soros’ Open Society Foundations, told Fox News Digital.

    Snip.

    GFI, however, works to remain secretive. It is invisible to internet search engines like Google (an unrelated “Govern for Impact” is the only group that appears in a search). No news reports or press releases appear on its existence outside of a mention of its related action fund in a previous Fox News article on the $1.6 billion Arabella Advisors-managed dark money network, to which it is attached.

    But as the group attempted to conceal its operations, it sought talent on Harvard Law School’s website, which was discoverable. The posting, which no longer appears on the site, was for legal policy internships.

    Snip.

    According to its website, Rachael Klarman, a Harvard Law School grad, steers the group. Her father, Michael Klarman, is a professor at Harvard Law and also has ties to progressive advocacy groups. He is an advisory board member of the left-wing dark money judicial group Take Back the Court. Last year, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, invited him to testify before Congress on dark money’s “assault” on the judiciary system.

    “Governing for Impact is the perfect example of the Left’s fake outrage over ‘dark money’ in politics,” said the Capital Research Center’s Parker Thayer, who discovered the group and alerted Fox News.

    “As a ‘fiscally sponsored’ dark money project that writes and pushes regulations from the shadows, hidden from the public and funded by one billionaire foundation, GFI embodies everything the Left pretends to abhor.”

  • The Ministry of Truth is worse than you think.

    The most egregious and blatant official U.S. disinformation campaign in years took place three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. That was when dozens of former intelligence officials purported, in an open letter, to believe that authentic emails regarding Joe Biden’s activities in China and Ukraine, reported by The New York Post, were “Russian disinformation.” That quasi-official proclamation enabled liberal corporate media outlets to uncritically mock and then ignore those emails as Kremlin-created fakes, and it pressured Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor the reporting at exactly the time Americans were preparing to decide who would be the next U.S. president.

    The letter from these former intelligence officials was orchestrated by trained career liars — disinformation agents — such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Yet that letter was nonetheless crucial to discredit and ultimately suppress the New York Post’s incriminating reporting on Biden. It provided a quasi-official imprimatur — something that could be depicted as an authoritative decree — that these authentic emails were, in fact, fraudulent.

    After all, if all of these noble and heroic intelligence operatives who spent their lives studying Russian disinformation were insisting that the Biden emails had all of the “hallmarks” of Kremlin treachery, who possessed the credibility to dispute their expert assessment?

    Snip.

    This same strategic motive — to vest accusations of “disinformation” with the veneer of expertise — is what has fostered a new, very well-financed industry heralding itself as composed of “anti-disinformation” scholars. Knowing that Americans are inculcated from childhood to believe that censorship is nefarious — that it is the hallmark of tyranny — those who wish to censor need to find some ennobling rationale to justify it and disguise what it is.

    They have thus created a litany of neutral-sounding groups with benign names — The Atlantic Council, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, various “fact-checking” outfits controlled by corporate media outlets — that claim to employ “anti-disinformation experts” to identify and combat fake news. Just as media corporations re-branded their partisan pundits as “fact-checkers” — to masquerade their opinions as elevated, apolitical authoritative, decrees of expertise — the term “disinformation expert” is designed to disguise ideological views on behalf of state and corporate power centers as Official Truth.

    Yet when one subjects these groups to even minimal investigative scrutiny, one finds that they are anything but apolitical and neutral. They are often funded by the same small handful of liberal billionaires (such as George Soros and Pierre Omidyar), actual security state agencies of the U.S., the UK or the EU, and/or Big Tech monopolies such as Google and Facebook.

    Indeed, the concept of “anti-disinformation expert” is itself completely fraudulent. This is not a real expertise but rather a concocted title bestowed on propagandists to make them appear more scholarly and apolitical than they are. But the function of this well-funded industry is the same as the one served by the pre-election letter from “dozens of former intelligence officials”: to discredit dissent and justify its censorship by infusing its condemnation with the pretense of institutional authority. The targeted views are not merely wrong; they have been adjudged by official, credentialed experts to constitute “disinformation.”

    This scam is the critical context for understanding why the Biden Administration casually announced last week the creation of what it is calling a “Disinformation Board” inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). There is no conceivable circumstance in which a domestic law enforcement agency like DHS should be claiming the power to decree truth and falsity. Operatives in the U.S. Security State are not devoted to combatting disinformation. The opposite is true: they are trained, career liars tasked with concocting and spreading disinformation.

  • Corporations are finally starting to wake up to how how wokeness is destroying their bottom line.

    Business leaders are waking up to the destructive “woke” policies being foisted on businesses by boardrooms more concerned with virtue signaling than their primary responsibility of ensuring corporate profitability and enhancing shareholder values.

    In short, the “woke” buck stops here, more corporate executives are saying. Mixing the politics of culture wars with business is a losing strategy.

    Former McDonald’s CEO Ed Rensi is leading the charge. He ran McDonalds from 1991-1997, bringing the chain’s McNugget to market and also served on the boards of Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que, Great Wolf Resorts and Snap-on Inc. These days, he’s launching The Boardroom Initiative, comprised of three conservative advocacy groups — The Job Creators Network, which was founded by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, The Free Enterprise Group and Second Vote. The goal: get business back to business and out of politics.

    “Corporations have no business being on the right or the left because they represent everybody there and their sole job is to build equity for their investors,” Rensi told FOX Business.

    Rensi knows how to grow a business. While leading McDonalds, he saw U.S. sales double to more than $16 billion, the number of U.S. restaurants grow from nearly 6,600 to more than 12,000 and the number of U.S. franchisees grow from 1,600 to more than 2,700.

    “It is not the province of board members or executives to take shareholder money profit and spend it on social matters,” Rensi explained. “Corporations should not get involved in social engineering.”

  • Confirmation of things you already knew: “Emails Surface More Evidence Hillary Clinton Paid For Anti-Trump Disinformation Operation.”
  • Trump goes 55-0. Everyone he endorsed won their primary or made the runoff. All those are from Indiana, Ohio, and Texas. I didn’t realize that so few states have had their primaries already. Hopefully that record will be shattered and Dr. Oz (a bad pick by Trump) will lose when Pennsylvania votes May 17th.
  • Trying to make your children into the Youth Stasi: “DC elementary school gives 4-year-olds books to report racist family members.”
  • The only surprise here is that he didn’t work for CNN. “MSNBC Anchor Busted ‘Driving 3 Hours’ To Meet Little Boy For Sex.” “A New York group specializing in exposing child-sex predators seemed to all but confirm this after they posted a video online Friday busting a potential pedophile who appeared to be NBC anchor Zach Wheeler. Wheeler had driven an approximate total of 3 hours in order to meet up with a 15-year-old boy for sex, the group claims.”
  • How some of the lunatics connected to GamerGate (namely Brianna Wu) are still grifting the left.
  • Schools Sent Employees to Critical Race Theory Conference With Tax Dollars. Four major school districts spent more than $26,000 on the SXSW EDU conference.” That’s Austin ISD, Fort Worth ISD, San Antonio ISD, and Round Rock ISD.
  • Speaking of school districts wasting money and lying to you:

  • Tomorrow voters in Leander get an opportunity to pull out of Capital Metro.

  • Actor Frank Langella fired from Netflix miniseries production of The Fall of the House of Usher for…touching an actress’ leg during a love scene. Bonus: An “intimacy coordinator.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Heh:

  • Moloch Warns Of Looming Child Sacrifice Supply Chain Issues.”
  • Fun

  • Heroic dog rescue:

  • Things To Be Grateful For: Salt

    Thursday, November 25th, 2021

    Happy Thanksgiving! While enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with your family, you probably won’t think much about that humble shaker full of salt on your table. But it took a lot of hard work and industrial machinery to get it to you, as seen in this Mike Rowe video:

    I haven’t found part 2 of this video online, but here’s another Fox video that includes some of the same footage, but much that’s different:

    LinkSwarm for April 16, 2021

    Friday, April 16th, 2021

    Greetings! Welcome to an extra-late Friday LinkSwarm! I had a doctor’s appointment and have been running behind all day. This week: #BlackLivesMatter activists raking off that sweet, sweet graft, mainstream media keeps up its assault on independent thought, and a bunch of Texas news.

    • Hustling the rubes for #BlackLivesMatter Dane-geld must really pay well for “trained Marxist” Patrisse Khan-Cullors, because she just bought herself a $1.4 million home in an exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood where “the vast majority of residents are white.” Evidently disdaining “whiteness” is for .
    • But her buying spree didn’t end there! She bought a total of four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone.
    • Cullors isn’t the only BLM biggie buying houses on the grift. The FBI arrested Toledo, Ohio #BlackLivesMatter activist Sir Maejor Page for allegedly spending “over $200,000 on personal items generated from donations received through BLMGA Facebook page with no identifiable purchase or expenditure for social or racial justice” and is facing “federal wire fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly spending the money on tailored suits, a home in Ohio, and guns.”
    • Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants a global minimum corporate tax. Since other countries aren’t stupid, I doubt she’ll get it. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
    • Teachers union power, not rate of COVID transmission, determines whether schools are open for instruction.”
    • After an embarrassing hidden camera footage of CNN personal admitting their liberal bias, Twitter permanently bans Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe.
    • Here’s what Twitter doesn’t want you to see:


      

    • And now O’Keefe is suing them for defamation.

      I am suing Twitter for defamation because they said I, James O’Keefe, ‘operated fake accounts.’” O’Keefe wrote in an emailed statement to The Federalist. “This is false, this is defamatory, and they will pay. Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday.”

      The discovery process for that is going to be lit
      

    • Speaking of Twitter being petty, they will “not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump’s past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available on the social media platform.”
    • Also, they locked the account of black journalist Jason Whitlock for daring to criticize Cullors for her house-buying spree. Presumably there’s a secret Twitter algorithm setting for “Uppity.”
      

    • Speaking of censorship, the Epoch Times had to suspend printing of its Hong Kong edition after its presses were busted up. For the fourth time.
      

    • “NYT Journalist Erases ENTIRE Twitter After National Pulse Unearths Posts Admitting “Working For The Chinese Communist Party.” That would be one Jonah K. Kessel.
    • Why Iranians are furious at New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi.

    • How Biden’s “job plan” would hurt the American economy.
    • College threatens to fire professor unless he takes “mandatory diversity training.” Professor tells them to get stuffed. College blinks.
    • Truth:

    • “Black Lives Matter, So Refund the Police“:

      Public officials across the country are only now discovering the foreseeable consequences of these decisions. City legislatures are realizing that in their attempt to make life better for marginalized groups, they have only contributed to the disproportionate hardships they already face. As it becomes apparent that moves to defund the police have exacerbated criminality, some local authorities are reversing cuts to police budgets passed last year amid much radical breast-beating but without much thought for who would bear the likely consequences.

      Minneapolis is the epicentre of the defund movement—the city in which George Floyd died last May as he was being taken into police custody. In spite of a spike in crime there in 2020, including a 70 percent increase in homicides, the Minneapolis City Council decided in December to redistribute $8 million from the police budget to other violence prevention services. At the time, Mayor Jacob Frey said there were “good reasons to be optimistic about the future in Minneapolis.” The move to reallocate funds away from the police department was proclaimed a “Safety for All” plan by its supporters. Unfortunately, it has made the streets of Minneapolis considerably less safe. In the first three weeks of 2021, Minneapolis saw a 250 percent increase in gunshot wound victims from the same time last year.

    • Since defunding, murders are up 64% in Minneapolis.
    • “Texas Supreme Court Delivers Dallas Salon Owner Shelley Luther a Delayed Victory.” “The remaining five days in jail and $7,000 fine ordered by the district court is now off the table entirely.”
    • “Majority of Voters Say Preventing Fraud in Elections Is More Important Than Making Voting Easier.”
    • China Fighter Jets Will Fly Over Taiwan to Declare Sovereignty.” What could possibly go wrong?
    • “Biden is making the Trump presidency seem like a golden age of unity.”

      Until Biden came along, every single covid-19 relief bill was approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses. Congress passed three covid relief packages in March 2020 with margins of 96-1, 90-8, and 96-0 in the Senate, and with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House. This was followed in April by the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which passed 388-5 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. Indeed, the votes were so bipartisan that Democrats blocked another covid relief package until after Election Day — because they did not want to let President Donald Trump claim credit for another bipartisan victory before voters went to the polls. But after he lost and they finally allowed another covid bill to come up for a vote in December, it passed both houses of Congress with similar margins.

      Yeah, but bipartisan doesn’t curry favor with the hard left who want massive graft payoffs and total control.

    • Speaking of graft: “Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Uses Call Options To Buy Microsoft Ahead Of Big Govt Contract.”
    • “Former House Speaker John Boehner Falsely Claims Ronald Reagan Was ‘Pro-Abortion.'” He was no Newt Gingrich…
    • The Russian bounty story was always a complete lie. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
    • Texas Republican U.S. Representative Kevin Brady announces his retirement.
    • Former Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was arrested on Class A Misdemeanor Assault Family Violence charges in Dallas after a scuffle over a laptop. “Hotel management told police officers that the woman was assaulted by Dewhurst. Officers spoke with the woman who said that Dewhurst was boarding a bus when the woman remembered that she had his laptop. It was a shared laptop that they both had access to, the affidavit said.” I wonder if the woman is the same 40-year old “live-in girlfriend” Leslie Caron who allegedly broke two of his ribs last year. Also makes you wonder: 1. Just what was on that laptop, and 2. What Dewhurst, a man with a reported net worth of over $200 million, was doing riding a bus…
    • Yesterday was Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day.
    • Mike Rowe on why raising the minimum wage is a stupid idea:

      I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper. I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just pull the money out of midair you’re going to create other problems, like there is a ladder of success that people climb and some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers.

    • The problem with Austin this time of year is that the air is just filled with pollen:

    • Spotify keeps deleting Joe Rogan podcasts.
    • The line between reality and Titania McGrath grows ever thinner:

    • $251 Billion State Budget Passes Texas Senate, Stays Below Target Spending Line.”
    • SB10, a taxpayer funded lobbying ban, also passed the Texas Senate.
    • Texas House Approves Constitutional Carry, Bill to Be Sent to Senate.”
    • “Nigeria’s Muslim communications minister: “We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed.'”
    • The public doesn’t want to read books by corrupt scumbag crackhead adulterous whoremongers? Do tell… (Hat tip: Mollie Hemingway.)
    • Evidently the “new” case against Woody Allen is as shoddy as the old case:

      There is no doubt that part of the goal of Allen v. Farrow was to finish off both Allen’s career and his legacy by presenting a definitive guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. The filmmakers, aided by a mostly uncritical press, have undoubtedly won over a large segment of the public—those who come to this subject for the first time through their HBO subscriptions, or who aren’t inclined to question “survivors.” But for those of us who are familiar with the story, or who take the trouble to check it out, the effect is the opposite. If making the case against Allen requires his cultural prosecutors to weave this kind of intellectually dishonest, emotionally manipulative, selectively edited account of the underlying drama, then the case for acquittal becomes stronger, not weaker.

    • Florida Man floors it.
    • Murica table.
    • “Minneapolis Target Holds Semi-Annual ‘Everything Is Free‘ Sale.”
    • “In Fun, Innovative Science Project, Middle Schooler Makes A Battery Out Of Brian Stelter.
    • Smile:

    For some reason, WordPress is now putting random gaps between bullet points in the LinkSwarm, so I’m having to tinker with the look and feel a bit. I may even have to update to a more current version…

    Mike Rowe on “The Science Is Settled” And Cancel Culture

    Monday, March 8th, 2021

    Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame has some useful observations on the left throwing around “The Science Is Settled!” as a universal “get out of debate free” card:

    David J. Herdrich writes…

    Look, Mr Rowe, it’s easy to take a set of quotes and predictions of scientists out of context and situate your post in a narrative that says Covid and Climate Change are hoaxes or greatly exaggerated. But when put in the broader context of the science that has been done, and the broader context of what scientists have said, Covid and Climate Change are both serious threats that should not be downplayed.

    Hi David,

    I don’t see how I downplayed either issue. I agree that both are deadly serious, and that both demand our attention. But does that mean we should ignore the long list of predictions and claims that have turned out to be false? Pointing out misstatements from powerful people who shape policy is not taking things “out of context,” it’s holding people accountable. Hundreds of journalists, politicians, and scientists who spoke with great certainty about both issues turned out to be dead wrong. That doesn’t mean that science is not to be trusted – but it does mean we can no longer hope to persuade skeptical people by simply proclaiming, “because the science is settled!” Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Point being, our current credibility crisis isn’t happening because powerful people were merely wrong about critical issues that affect us all – it’s happening because they were wrong, and certain, and unapologetic. That trifecta has had a devastating effect on the public trust, and for good reason. But this crisis of credibility is also happening because “cancel culture” is very real, as is the attack on free speech.

    As I type this, I see that Mr. Potato Head is no longer a male, and Dr. Suess is now a racist. Here in San Francisco, the school board has voted to remove no less than 44 names from the façade of public schools. Among them, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jefferson. These decisions, in my opinion, are all promulgated by people who share two qualities in equal measure – certainty and intolerance. They are certain of what they believe, and they are intolerant of those who disagree. If you revisit the sources I provided in my original post, you’ll see that combination appear over and over. It’s not a coincidence.

    Snip.

    I simply suggested the rise of certainty was correlated with the decline of humility, and Americans are starting to notice. Moreover, the onus is not on the American people to believe what our leaders and experts proclaim. They have a duty to persuade, not merely dismiss skeptics as “deniers.”

    But also, there’s an underlying hypocrisy at work here that transcends the business of being wrong, and a level of hubris that makes persuasion nearly impossible. Gavin Newsom’s future in politics is in real trouble today, not because of his policies, but because of his hypocrisy. Likewise, Andrew Cuomo’s words have come back to haunt him in a big way. “Believe all women?” Ok, let’s see if he means it. Al Gore scared the hell out millions of people by telling us the polar ice caps would be gone twenty years ago, and cited all kinds of scientific studies to support his claim. That doesn’t make him wrong about everything, but when he refuses to walk it back, it makes him fundamentally unpersuasive. But you seem to be arguing that anyone who dares to hold experts responsible for their own words, is “anti-science.” And you’re doing it with the same level of certainty we hear from guys like Newsom, Cuomo, Gore, and now, John Kerry.

    Snip.

    Today, I think we’re long on certainty and short on truth. Thus, we’re even shorter on credibility. But I think you’re mistaken to blame people for being skeptical. Their skepticism is more than justified, thanks to a long list of preposterous claims from our elected officials, a lack of humility among our experts, an assault on free speech in our universities, and a national press corps who makes no attempt to hide their bias. Throw in an assault on Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Suess and a few thousand statues of our founding fathers that are no longer appropriate, and perhaps you can start to see why people have begun to mistrust our institutions.

    As for “flattening the curve,” I was simply reminding people that we were all told a year ago – with great certainty – that the lockdowns would end when the curve was flattened. “Two weeks to flatten the curve!” Remember? A lot of scientists supported that promise, and millions of Americans trusted them. Well, the curve was flattened, but the lockdowns persisted. Pointing this out is not a criticism of science or scientists; it’s a criticism of certainty.

    Read the whole thing.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    Mike Rowe on Trump’s State of the Union Address

    Sunday, February 10th, 2019

    Dirty Jobs and Returning the Favor host Mike Rowe talks about President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, binary thinking, cognitive dissonance, and why blue collar jobs don’t get labeled “good jobs”:

    LinkSwarm for August 25, 2017

    Friday, August 25th, 2017

    Harvey has intensified into a Class 2 Hurricane overnight, and is expected to make landfall sometime around 1 AM, then stall and dump as much as 15-25 inches of rain from Brownsville to Houston.

    Naturally Houstonians are stocking up on the essentials: booze.

    Stay safe.

    Now enjoy your regularly scheduled Friday LinkSwarm:

  • “The Very Strange Indictment of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s IT Scammers:”

    To summarize, the indictment is an exercise in omission. No mention of the Awan group’s theft of information from Congress. Not a hint about the astronomical sums the family was paid, much of it for no-show “work.” Not a word about Wasserman Schultz’s keeping Awan on the payroll for six months during which (a) he was known to be under investigation, (b) his wife was known to have fled to Pakistan, and (c) he was not credentialed to do the IT work for which he had been hired. Nothing about Wasserman Schultz’s energetic efforts to prevent investigators from examining Awan’s laptop. A likely currency-transportation offense against Alvi goes uncharged. And, as for the offenses that are charged, prosecutors plead them in a manner that avoids any reference to what should be their best evidence.

    There is something very strange going on here.

  • Jihadists wanted to blow up Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona with a massive truck bomb.
  • DNC fundraising still sucking wind:

    The Democratic National Committee just posted its worst July fundraising numbers in a decade, raising questions about why the party machine cannot capitalize on President Trump’s low approval ratings and whether new Chairman Tom Perez is up to the task.

    The DNC raised $3.8 million last month, compared to $10.2 million for the Republican National Committee. The tally fit a pattern for the Democrats, who have posted a string of depressed fundraising numbers month after month this year, even after new party boss Perez took charge in February.

    Why, it’s almost like Russian conspiracy theories, LARP Nazis and the the imminent threat of Confederate statues doesn’t motivate Democratic donors to open their wallets. Or that Bernie Sanders supporters realize that the DNC is still the the hands of the same corrupt Clinton cronies who rigged the 2016 primaries…

  • “Ask yourself a few questions: Does the typical ‘swing’ voter who made the difference for Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin consider monuments to Robert E. Lee a major social problem?”
  • “Antifa Declares: ‘F**k Your F***ing Constitution, We’re Here to Punch Nazis.'” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Antifa beats their own ally at a rally. Way to win friends and influence people!
  • Arrest warrants are out for three men who skipped their arraignments yesterday after being cuffed following the ‘Free Speech Rally’ on the Boston Common Saturday and massive counterdemonstration.” So if you spot Antifa dumbasses Adan Daroba, Roberto Bonilla or Chad Cruger, contact the police… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • It’s all fun and games until you take one in the yarbles.
  • Update: Joshua Stuart Cobin, AKA “tear gas in the nads guy” has been arrested for assault, evidently for kicking the tear gas canister back toward police. There are a lot of real crimes numerous Antifa protestors should be arrested for, but this one seems a very dubious charge if that’s all it’s for.
  • Kurt Schlichter wonders just what the hell does #NeverTrump think they’re accomplishing?

    Oh yeah, we’ll repeal Obamacare. Oh yeah, we’ll defend the border. Oh yeah, we’ll defund the baby-butchering cartel. Oh yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. All lies, but they didn’t care. They had their power and prestige and the promise of a fat paycheck down the road when they moved from Congress to K Street. Actual conservative ideology? Well, that was for the rubes. And we were the rubes. We in the base, who are suffering from the establishment’s incompetent mismanagement of the society it had been foolish to try to micromanage in the first place, tried to warn them. But the Fredocons wouldn’t listen, because they’re smart, not like everyone says, like dumb…

    That warning was called ‘the Tea Party,” and the GOP establishment didn’t like it either. Remember how all those activated Republican voters helped recapture Congress, yet most of the establishment types looked at them like they were something nasty that was smeared on their shoes? See, the base isn’t supposed to be activated. It’s supposed to be obedient. It’s supposed to turn out on election day to do volunteer work and write checks. It’s not supposed to try to have input. That’s for our betters, not for us.

    But the thing is, now we’re woke, and we’ve realized that our establishment sucks, and that we’re tired of being the suckees. They didn’t listen to us when we gave them the Tea Party, so now we gave them Trump. And they’re very, very upset with us. That’s a key reason they want to undercut Trump. Some people are just always going to want to trash the guy getting the attention and wielding the influence they think rightfully belongs to them. That’s true whether they are some donkey–looking senator from Arizona or Nebraska pimping a book about his agonizing moral struggles, or some tiresome op-ed scribbler serving as the domesticated house conservative on a failing liberal rag, or the invasion-happy beneficiary of his parents’ success who finds he can’t fill the cabins on his brochure’s cruises anymore.

  • Chief Obamacare Architect Fired, Forced To Settle Fraudulent Billing Investigation In Vermont.” I know we were all hoping he’d be pushed off the Nakatomi Tower…
  • Mike Rowe smacks down a moron who called him a white nationalist:

    You say that White Nationalists believe that everyone who goes to college is an “academic elite.” You then say that Republicans promote “anti-intellectualism.” You offer no proof to support either claim, but it really doesn’t matter – your statements successfully connect two radically different organizations by alleging a shared belief. Thus, White Nationalists and The Republican Party suddenly have something in common – a contempt for higher education. Then, you make it personal. You say that Republicans “love” me because they believe that my initiative and “their” initiative are one and the same. But of course, “their” initiative is now the same initiative as White Nationalists.

    Very clever. Without offering a shred of evidence, you’ve implied that Republicans who support mikeroweWORKS do so because they believe I share their disdain for all things “intellectual.” And poof – just like that, Republicans, White Nationalists, and mikeroweWORKS are suddenly conflated, and the next thing you know, I’m off on a press tour to disavow rumors of my troubling association with the Nazis!

    Far-fetched? Far from it. That’s how logical fallacies work. A flaw in reasoning or a mistaken belief undermines the logic of a conclusion, often leading to real-world consequences. And right now, logical fallacies are not limited to the warped beliefs of morons with tiki torches, and other morons calling for “more dead cops.” Logical fallacies are everywhere.

  • “A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades.”
  • “One Statistics Professor Was Just Banned By Google.” Statistics professor Salil Mehta, adjunct professor at Columbia and Georgetown who teaches probability and data science, was banned by Google last Friday. “On Friday afternoon East Coast Time by surprise, I was completely shut down in all my Google accounts (all of my gmail accounts, blog, all of my university pages that were on google sites, etc.) for no reason and no warning.” His blog isn’t political and his Twitter account follows several prominent Democrats. (Update: restored.)
  • Mapping terrorist groups operating in Pakistan.
  • “After applying the latest big data technique to six 2,000 year-long proxy-temperature series we cannot confirm that recent warming is anything but natural – what might have occurred anyway, even if there was no industrial revolution.”
  • “For many Republicans, what matters most about Donald Trump is that he’s demonstrated resolve against the enemy — not the Islamic State or the Taliban, but the media.”
  • The Village Voice to end print publication. “Under its current ownership, the paper eliminated sex advertising.” Given that’s the only way “alternative” weeklies make money, I bet that was the final nail in the coffin. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Empower Texas has released their legislature ratings. A lot of Republicans ranked a lot lower than you might think…
  • Go to Cancun, do shots, get raped. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Freedom Center demands a retraction from the SPLC.
  • San Antonio ends ShotSpotters, one of those acoustic gunshot locator systems, because it doesn’t work. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • Whole Paycheck no more?
  • Trump’s ‘energy dominance’ strategy starting to crack Eastern European markets.” Shipping coal to Ukraine and LNG to Lithuania to replace Russian sources. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Why it took time for electricity to replace the steam engine.
  • “A rising number of young Chinese people are failing fitness tests required to join the army because they are too fat and masturbate too much.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Captain Kirk destroys social justice warrior cling-ons.
  • Heh:

  • Nearing its 50th Anniversary, here’s a look back at how The Prisoner TV show got made.
  • Ladies, important safety tip: never allow a loaded gun in your vagina. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Mike Rowe: “Never Follow Your Passion”

    Thursday, July 14th, 2016

    Saw this on Ace of Spades HQ a while back, and thought it would make a great space-filler on a day when I was too busy to write something.

    Guess what? That day is today!

    “Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it.”

    LinkSwarm for February 27, 2015

    Friday, February 27th, 2015

    Welcome to the Friday LinkSwarm, where two themes are jihadis enjoying the benefits of the welfare state, and Hillary Clinton enjoying treating campaign finance laws as “optional suggestions.”

  • 96% of Australian jihadis who joined the Islamic State were on welfare.
  • Sweden’s national job agency fires its entire network of “immigrant resettlement assistants” because they were finding them jobs with the Islamic State.
  • And the hits keep coming: Swedish expert on “Islamophobia” now fighting for the Islamic State.
  • Another day, another 24 people murdered by jihad in Nigeria. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
  • “If it bleeds, it leads”? Not when it comes to gang rapes in Muslim countries.
  • What the hell? Terrorism trials come to a halt after the Obama Administration orders military judges to move to Guantanamo Bay until the trail is finished.
  • How one Nebraska woman lost her health care three times thanks to ObamaCare.
  • Dana Milbank is very, very upset that Scott Walker isn’t biting on liberal gotcha questions. Oddly enough, I don’t think this concern extends to Hillary Clinton ducking Benghazi questions…
  • Speaking of Hillary, blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng says that, despite her boasts to the contrary, Hillary didn’t do squat to help him. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
  • The Clinton Foundation took millions of dollars in donations from foreign donors while Hillary was Secretary of State. Maybe Hillary thinks every 3 AM call is a chance to ask for more money… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Related tweet:

  • Hillary-linked firm: Campaign finance laws are for the little people.
  • “Barack Obama has a great, big, heaping dose of Holden Caulfield in him.” So he’s an annoying, whiny loser…
  • “Every Obama speech has a villain, and that villain is often other Americans who disagree with the president.”
  • So Turkey isn’t willing to lift a finger to save Kurds or Yazidis, but they’re willing to invade Syria to protect an Ottoman tomb.
  • Mike Rowe defends minimum wage jobs and says why there’s no such thing as a “bad job.” “Work is never the enemy, regardless of the wage. Because somewhere between the job and the paycheck, there’s still a thing called opportunity, and that’s what people need to pursue.”
  • The PLO and the Palestinian Authority have been found liable in terrorism jury trial. Does this mean funds can be garnished directly at the UN? (Hat tip: Legal Insurection.)
  • Did you know that there was a prison riot at a Texas illegal alien holding facility?
  • Allah: The worst communicator ever:

  • Liberals are shocked that college “study centers” designed to attack Republicans are being closed by Republican legislators. “Mr. Nichol said the center’s only agenda was to raise the profile of poverty in the state through research, teaching and advocacy.” One of these things is not like the others. Research and teaching are fine. Do your “advocacy” on your own time and dime, not the taxpayers.
  • Given the (obvious) news that the Justice Department wouldn’t be indicting George Zimmerman, Legal Insurrection took it upon themselves to review all the myths around the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial.
  • Chicago has it’s own secret black site prison. It’s almost like it’s a corrupt one-party police state…
  • Wikipedia: “Alexis Tsipras is a Greek politician who is the 186th Prime Minister of Greece since 26 January 2015.” By my calculations, that works out to about 5 Prime ministers a day…
  • UCLA strives to make its council Juden Frei.
  • Anti-antisemitism amidst the yobs:

  • Got to admit: That’s one hell of an effective personals photo:

  • LinkSwarm for February 20, 2015

    Friday, February 20th, 2015

    A Friday LinkSwarm for your edification:

  • Over on Ace of Spades, DrewM wonders just what we hope to achieve by intervening against ISIS.
  • Why doesn’t Obama include Egypt in the coalition against ISIS?
  • ISIS beheads cigarette smoker. Good thing Nurse Bloomberg is already out of office. Wouldn’t want to give him any ideas…
  • Sweden’s political establishment refuses to face its radical Muslim immigration problem. “In 1975, 421 rapes were reported to the police; in 2014, it was 6,620. That is an increase of 1,472%.”
  • Democrats are bracing for a backlash when the tax penalties in ObamaCare (the gift that keeps giving) start hitting unsuspecting tax filers.
  • And they just sent the wrong tax information to 800,000 ObamaCare enrollees.
  • Why did Governor SexPuppy resign? Because he tried to go all Lois Lerner on his emails. (Via AceOfSpadesHQ.)
  • DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz offers to change her position on medical marijuana if a trial lawyer would just stop saying mean things about her. Way to look both corrupt and pathetic at the same time…
  • Old and Busted: Democrats attacking the Koch Brothers. The New Hotness: Democrats attacking Democrats attacking the Koch Brothers as the reason they lost in 2014.
  • Mike Rowe on education vs. a college degree.
  • First Amendment, Empower Texans and Michael Quinn Sullivan 1, Texas Trial Lawyers Association and Joe Straus’ Toadies 0.
  • Why progressives seem compelled to lie:

    Your standard progressive activist has really done nothing very interesting, so he or she needs to get proper credentials, to show that he or she knows what’s what, and that progressivism is what the world needs to deal with “problems”–after all, isn’t life just a series of problems calling for progressive intervention? They want to see what they believe.

    We, hence, have progressives making up the sort of stuff that puts them, the elite, in the center of the battle, on the ramparts, in the muddy trenches and downed helicopters with the common schlubs–the sort of worldly experience that allows progressives to tell us how to live our lives.

    Not to mention the fact that they doubt anyone will ever call them on their BS. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Swastikas and “F#ck Jews” painted on 30 houses in: A.) Paris, B.) Copenhagen, or C.) Madison, Wisconsin?
  • Related:

  • I hope to have time to put up a separate post on the ruling against Obama’s illegal amnesty Real Soon Now…