News of the Week for July 10th, 2022
- Election 2022
- Abortion
- Gun Rights
- Hide the Decline
- Obamacare
- War & Terror
- National News
- Economy & Taxes
- International News
- Opinion
Election 2022
Yet another hypocritical Newsom faceplant: Vacation in Montana despite Newsom-ordered travel bar on official business
So goes the Glorious 2024 Hope of Democrats — from the French Laundry frying pan into the LGBTQIA++ fire. Gavin Newsom just aired an ad in Florida lecturing California’s burgeoning ex-pat population in the Sunshine State how much freedom they’re losing, especially in regard to sexual choices and women’s rights. After launching that salvo in clear anticipation of the 2024 election cycle, California’s governor left for vacation– but his office stalled on answering questions as to where he went.
Newsom opponent: I’m not one of those “crazy Republicans”
California’s massively outnumbered Republicans have settled on state senator Brian Dahle to run against Gavin Newsom in November. While it doesn’t seem as if the Democrats would need to put much effort into defeating him, some are already trying to brand him as being the same as red-state Republicans and supporters of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It probably says something about the current state of our national politics when Dahle feels compelled to go out on the campaign trail and assure everyone that he’s not one of the “crazy Republicans” that Californians see in the news all of the time. He wants everyone to know that he’s “a reasonable person,” so they should feel free to vote for him.
Recall Gascón Submits Over 700,000 Signatures to LA County Registrar
Gascón blames Republicans.
Ducey Endorses Robson in Arizona Governor’s Race
GOP governor Doug Ducey, who is leaving office because of term limits, announced on Thursday that he’s backing businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson in the Arizona Republican gubernatorial primary
UK Tories Aim to Have Johnson’s Successor Selected by September
Aim to get first part of process done before Parliament recess. Grassroots party members to then pick from final two MPs
Has Herschel Walker’s staff turned on him?
If Republicans blow this Senate seat in a 50/50 state in a year when a red tidal wave is soon to crash down in House races, it’ll be the greatest political own-goal since they nominated Christine O’Donnell in Delaware.
Wisconsin Supreme Court disallows absentee ballot drop boxes
Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court ruled Friday that absentee ballot drop boxes may be placed only in election offices and that no one other than the voter can return a ballot in person, dealing a defeat to Democrats who said the decision would make it harder to vote in the battleground state.
AP/NORC poll: It’s still *really* the economy, stupid — especially in the suburbs
Or it’s still really the stupid economy. Take your pick, but the latest Associated Press/NORC poll shows that voter focus on personal economics as their midterm criterion has grown faster than the inflation that’s driving it.
Abortion
Dobbs Decision
Politico: Abortion may spell midterm disaster … for Dems
Just how bad are the midterm prospects for Democrats? So bad, Politico reports, that they’re openly acknowledging that they can only offer “political theater” to supporters on abortion — despite controlling the presidency and both chambers of Congress. The impotence and strategic incompetence of Joe Biden and his team may alienate younger voters even more on this issue that Democrats believed would deliver them from a red-wave humiliation in November
Nevada governor signs executive order to protect criminal abortionists
On June 28, just four days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak signed an executive order that he said is designed to “strengthen protections for reproductive freedom” in the state. In reality, the order is chiefly designed to protect abortionists.
Biden Hops On the Rape Bandwagon
I wrote here about the sensational story of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion. The story, phoned into an Indiana newspaper by an abortionist who seems to spend most of her time promulgating pro-abortion propaganda in the press, spread around the world almost instantaneously. But there is little reason to believe it is true. No one, including Snopes, has been able to verify it, there is no sign of any criminal investigation or prosecution of the supposed rapist, and the abortionist who originally peddled the story seems to have gone to ground.
Gun Rights
Philadelphia Mayor Thinks Only Cops Should Have Guns After Two Cops Injured in Shooting
The mayor would strip people of their right to bear arms if he had the power to do so.
Sounds Like Japan Needs Some Gun Laws
Shooting people should be illegal
Hide the Decline
Environment &
“Green Energy”
Sad Times in Aspen: Technocrats Fret
Sarah Bloom Raskin is, it seems, unhappy that climate policy might be taken away from the unelected.
Greenflation Watch: ESG
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, David R. Henderson and Marc Joffe highlight the way in which ESG (a form of socially responsible investing in which actual or prospective portfolio companies are measured against various environmental, social, and governance benchmarks) may contribute to inflation.
The German economy is on the brink
Putin can’t be blamed for the country’s economic malaise
Green Dogma Behind Fall Of Sri Lanka
Organic farm advocates said they wanted what’s best for the 22 million people of the island nation off the coast of India. What went wrong?
Obamacare
Government in Healthcare
Democrats want to raid Medicare to pay for Obamacare — again
There were a lot of ingredients in the 2010 Republican electoral landslide. Perhaps the most significant was that by raiding $787 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare, Democrats gave the “Medicare cuts” club they had used to beat Republicans over the head for decades to their opponents, who then hammered away at them.
War & Terror
Terrorist ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’ Endorses Massachusetts Mapping Project Targeting Jewish Supporters of Israel
US-designated terrorist group supports mission of anonymous group inciting violence against Jews.
China Busted for Targeting Pentagon Rare Earth Contractor with Disinformation Campaign
China’s attack came in the form of a social media involving fake environmental damage claims.
Highland Park Shooting: Suspect Robert Crimo Known to Law Enforcement
The suspect had a fascination with mass shootings and rapped about it.
Hacker claims to have obtained data on 1 billion Chinese citizens
Personal information allegedly taken from Shanghai police database would be one of biggest data breaches in history
China May Be Plotting Moon ‘takeover’ As Part Of Its Military Space Programme, Says NASA
For the first time, China Chang’e 4 lunar lander also successfully grew plants on moon under its ambitious lunar mission, giving a competitive edge to NASA.
Iran, Russia, China To Run War Drills in Latin America
Iran, Russia, and China are gearing up to run a series of major war drills in Latin America in a show of force meant to signal how these militaries can reach the United States.
Mystery Cargo
Senior Iranian and Venezuelan officials are traveling around the world on a cargo plane. Argentina detained them. But what are they up to?
Russia: Time for a little “operational pause” in Ukraine
…but across the border, his men need a breather after four months of war. They succeeded in taking Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, securing a victory in Luhansk at God knows what cost. Donetsk is next, and that looks to be harder.
National
Las Vegas hotels to offer ‘first ever’ VR porn delivery robots as part of room service
Help is at hand for lonely hotel guests at Las Vegas resorts thanks to a new VR porn delivery robot – it brings a sanitised headset with the latest immersive adult movies direct to your room
6 dead, more than two dozen hospitalized in mass shooting at Highland Park Fourth of July parade; shooter sought
The shooter appeared to have fired “a high-powered rifle” from a rooftop, police said. “This doesn’t happen here,” said a witness who ran to safety with his family. “It shouldn’t happen anywhere.”
How do you spell ‘independence? Turns out 1 in 3 Americans have no idea!
Survey reveals that 2 in 3 young adults don’t know who American declared its independence from in 1776!
The Left Is Gobsmacked After Biden Makes Deal With McConnell to Name Pro-Life Judge
The day before the Supreme Court issued its historic decision repealing Roe v. Wade, Joe Biden struck a deal with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell to name Judge Chad Meredith to the federal bench in Kentucky. In return, McConnell would allow Democrats’ preferred nominees for U.S. Attorney in the state to be confirmed.
DeSantis Blasts Fake Civics Bill
The silence of Republican office-holders on the Civics Secures Democracy Act (CSDA) — a bill that would push critical race theory (CRT) on every public school in the country — has just been broken by Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Late last week, DeSantis exposed this supposed federal “civics” bill for what it is: an opportunity for Biden’s education bureaucrats to fill students’ heads with CRT.
War Zone Minneapolis
There has been a steady increase in lawlessness felt in the Twin Cities since 2020 when the defund the police movement promoted weeks of rioting and the burning of the Police 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis – a structure that sits two years later, like a burned-out trophy for criminality.
Arizona to SCOTUS: Second look at proof-of-citizenship for voting?
Anything’s possible with a new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, but I’d call this improbable at best. Arizona passed a law in the spring to require voters to show proof of citizenship while registering — presumably birth certificates, passports, or naturalization papers. It’s not the first time that the state has passed such a law, but after a 2013 loss at the Supreme Court and a massive border crisis in between, Gov. Doug Ducey, AG Mark Brnovich, and the legislature apparently want a rematch.
The Invasion of CRT into American Education
American schools and colleges used to mostly teach key skills and knowledge. Often, they were pretty good at it. But then the “progressives” figured out that they could use them to spread their ideas, and so the content of education began changing — more propaganda for leftism, less knowledge.
Lawmakers Investigate State Department’s ‘Equity’ Diplomat
Republican House members launched an investigation into the State Department’s new racial-equity post last week, citing a National Review report. In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Representative James Comer — the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee — and other GOP lawmakers on the panel expressed their concern that the new role “categorizes and further divides Americans.”
Keeping Tabs on the Education World
A host of recent developments — pandemic-era school closures, the spotlight shined on critical race theory, political action about school curricula from school boards up to governors’ mansions — have combined to put education, always an important issue, at the forefront of the public mind. If you’re looking for more coverage of this always-interesting topic than National Review offers, I would recommend checking out Chalkboard Review. Run by, among others, some education experts who have also written for us, Chalkboard Review was founded in 2020 “to provide a heterodox outlet for editorials, breaking news, and other commentary from educators.”
Neighborhoods with more dogs see less crime, study shows
It turns out man’s best friend is taking a real bite out of crime! Researchers from The Ohio State University have found that neighborhoods which are home to more dogs also experience less crime — including murder and assault.
GBI investigating after parts of mysterious Georgia monument destroyed by explosive device
Part of a mysterious Georgia monument was destroyed by an explosive device overnight, leading to an active police investigation in Elberton, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
School board director Jenn Mason to teach sexual ‘pleasure’ class to 9-year-olds
A Washington state school board director who owns a sex shop is making headlines after announcing she will teach sex education classes for children as young as 9 on topics such as “sexual anatomy for pleasure” and “safer sex practices for all kinds of sexual activities.”
National Education Association Wants to Replace ‘Mother’ With ‘Birthing Parent’ in Contracts
What about employees who want to be addressed as a mother or a father? They don’t count?
Getting out: Retiring UCLA professor on how woke activists overtook his department
UCLA Anthropology professor Joseph Manson is retiring form his tenured position at the school after more than 25 years. Today, in a piece published on Bari Weiss’ Substack site, professor Manson explain his reasons for leaving. Simply put, he can’t stand to continue working in a department that has been slowly taken over by woke extremists. Unlike other professors who have resigned under pressure, Manson isn’t leaving because he’s become the target of the mob. He’s leaving because he’s seen the mob target people around him.
Morton speaks up
The harassment of conservative Supreme Court justices manifested at Morton’s in the District of Columbia on Wednesday evening. While Justice Kavanaugh ate dinner at the downtown steakhouse, protesters were tipped to his presence. The protesters showed up out front, called the Morton’s manager to tell him to kick Justice Kavanaugh out, and later tweeted that the justice was forced to exit through the rear of the restaurant.
Las Vegas considers implementing curfew after recent shootings
Officials in Las Vegas are mulling a curfew for those under the age of 21 following recent shootings and gun violence in the downtown area.
California’s bullet train project is getting an inspector general
The estimated cost of California’s High Speed Rail system connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles has been going up every year since it was launched. In February the latest estimates put the total cost at $105 billion. Very belatedly, the state has decided that what the project needs is a dedicated inspector general who can identify corruption in the system and try to bring the spending back under control.
Wisconsin court rules against transgender sex offender
The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled Thursday that a transgender woman cannot change her name because she is on the state’s sex offender registry and the law does not allow people on the registry to change their names.
Portland homeless break into vacant homes and police don’t have resources to do anything about it
Residents of one Portland neighborhood say as many as 16 people have broken into two vacant houses on their street and are coming in and out at all hours, piling up trash and leaving used needles in the grass.
“He was treating them like peasants”: DeSantis hits back at Gavin Newsom
A fun note on which to end the week, in which a Republican who wants to be president but whose path is momentarily blocked returns serve against a Democrat who wants to be president but whose path is momentarily blocked.
Dem pollster: Kemp up in Georgia — and so is Walker
Well, my my my. The reports of Herschel Walker’s political death in Georgia may turn out to be exaggerated after all — may, I emphasize. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed the football star-turned-Republican Senate nominee down ten points to incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, 45/55. However, Democratic pollster Data for Progress sees the race very differently, even with the recent scandals surrounding Walker
Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Retaliatory investigations, reckless investigating, and a consultant’s duty.
4Chan Users Are Leaking Info Allegedly From Hunter Biden’s iPhone and… Yikes…
Hunter Biden’s laptop may soon be old news, as 4chan users claim to have cracked the password for a backup of his iPhone and iPad. They claim to have 450 gigabytes of data that is being leaked onto the site.
Simulation shows tsunami waves as high as 42 feet could hit Seattle in minutes should a major earthquake occur on the Seattle Fault
A simulation released by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) shows the impact of a 7.5-magnitude earthquake on the Seattle Fault.
Economy & Taxes
Euro slides to 20-year low against the dollar as recession fears build
The euro shed around 1.3% for the session to hit $1.029 by mid-afternoon in Europe, having earlier been as low as $1.028.
Business Exit from China Accelerating
Beene’s evidence is a review of corporations’ earnings calls and conference presentations, which find increased discussion of “onshoring,” “nearshoring,” and “reshoring” since the start of 2020, and especially over the past four quarters.
The US Industrial Complex Is Starting to Buckle From High Power Costs
Surging bills are forcing companies to scale back industrial operations, threatening a greater drag on the economy.
AP/NORC poll: It’s still *really* the economy, stupid — especially in the suburbs
Or it’s still really the stupid economy. Take your pick, but the latest Associated Press/NORC poll shows that voter focus on personal economics as their midterm criterion has grown faster than the inflation that’s driving it.
Is McConnell about to beat the Dems on the anti-China semiconductor bill?
It makes me laugh that this Axios piece frames the likely outcome of the standoff over the bill, a.k.a. USICA, as a looming victory for Democrats rather than for McConnell. I bet it makes him laugh harder.
International
Netherlands Police Open Fire at Farmers Protesting Globalist ‘Climate Change’ Restrictions
Dutch ministers “warn that farmers will have to adapt or face the prospect of shuttering their businesses.”
Woman lit on fire in attack on bus at Kipling station has died, sources say
A woman lit on fire on a Toronto transit bus has died, Toronto police and sources in contact with her family have confirmed to CBC News.
The Narrative vs. The Truth: Prospera ZEDE Takes on Media’s Lies
A promising community is bringing investment, jobs, and technology to the poor nation of Honduras. Unsurprisingly, the Left wants to snuff it out.
Chilling final pic shows Shinzo Abe’s killer lurking behind him moments before ex-PM is shot in deadly assassination
Abe died after being brutally gunned down in a bloody assassination – with the lone gunman armed with a homemade weapon.
Chinese researchers develop device they say can test loyalty of ruling party members
An artificial intelligence institute in Anhui says the device is based on facial scans and a polygraph.
Japan’s ex-leader Shinzo Abe assassinated during a speech
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated Friday on a street in western Japan by a gunman who opened fire on him from behind as he delivered a campaign speech — an attack that stunned the nation with some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.
Read the troubling story of how trans activists ‘groomed’ girl, 17, before she was helped to transition into a man after a ONE-HOUR ‘gender clinic’ consultation… and at 21 she wants to be FEMALE again
Tanya became transgender at the age of 18 after consulting a gender clinic
Sri Lankan PM agrees to quit amid biggest political turmoil
Sri Lanka’s prime minister agreed to resign on Saturday after party leaders in Parliament demanded both he and the embattled president step down on the day protesters stormed the president’s residence and office in a fury over a worsening economic crisis.
Sri Lanka Unravels
Countries never fall in a day. There’s always a long chain of events that precedes something so catastrophic, a string of decisions and circumstances that lead to ultimate collapse. But there is often a day that is remembered as the day everything truly fell apart. For Sri Lanka, July 9 is that day.
How an Anarchist ‘Paradise’ Became a Violent Hellscape
“When did you ever feel like you would be happy to see children burning books?” asks a gleeful Nathan Freeman over images of his kids tearing up tomes and throwing them into a beach bonfire at the beginning of Blumhouse Television’s The Anarchists. For most, the answer will likely be: never! Even those embracing an anti-establishment lifestyle, however, achieve little lasting joy in director Todd Schramke’s six-part HBO docuseries (July 10), which focuses on an annual event known as Anarchapulco—held, as its title implies, in Acapulco, Mexico—that brings together men and women who object to governments and their corrupt, authoritarian rules and social norms. It’s a fascinating portrait of against-the-grain dissenters and their pipe dreams of true freedom, commencing with promise and concluding with the age-old lesson that you should be careful what you wish for.
Protesting Dutch Farmers Refuse to Back Down Despite Police Crackdown
Farmers the Netherlands are protesting new EU-mandated ‘climate’ emission regulations that threaten to destroy their livelihood.
Opinion
July 3, 1776: John Adams Boasts About Independence to Abigail Adams
Adams: Future Americans must celebrate Independence Day “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
July 4, 1776: Second Continental Congress Adopts Declaration of Independence
It’s only treason if you lose.
The eternal meaning of Independence Day
On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech.
The eternal meaning of Independence Day (2)
President Calvin Coolidge celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety.
Edmund Burke for College Football Czar
Following Edmund Burke’s adage (which was actually first said by Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, in a speech in the House of Commons on 1641, but it is thoroughly Burkean) that “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change,” we can draw a straight line from this week’s ridiculous decision for USC and UCLA to join the Big Ten to the ruinous decision to institute the college football Bowl Championship Series back in 1998. College football has gone downhill ever since.
Who Is Being Harmed By “Deadnaming,” and How?
I already went on a big long rant last week about refusing to use Ezra Miller’s preferred pronouns, both because he’s a scumbag criminal and because I refuse to deny human biology. You’d think that would be the end of it! But the journos and their fellow libs just won’t listen.
Whom Does the Mainstream Media Want the GOP to Nominate in 2024?
At this moment, any Republican official or strategist who spends a lot of time thinking about Donald Trump taking on Ron DeSantis in the 2024 presidential election is putting the cart before the horse — there’s still a midterm-election cycle to win. Yes, right now the outlook suggests a tsunami-size GOP wave, but nothing is guaranteed in life. In fact, the best way for Republicans to blow opportunities in a near-ideal political environment like this one is to start taking things for granted.
A Popular Fiction Genre is Unreadable Garbage. Blame Colleges.
Over the last several years, a burgeoning new genre has put the book-watching world on notice. “New Adult,” a coinage first used by St. Martin’s Press in 2009, refers to novels with greater depth than standard YA fare but far less than traditional literary fiction. Intended for twentysomethings unready for the challenge of real books, the New Adult category spans romance, fantasy/horror, and drama while asking little of its readers beyond cursory attention and a seated posture. Its sales, needless to say, are superb. Yet it just might represent a kind of national intellectual apocalypse.
Florida’s New History Curriculum Is Pretty Great
Ron DeSantis’s state of Florida drew controversy over the Fourth of July weekend after the Miami Herald released copies of slides that the government used in civics training sessions for K–12 public-school teachers, which it partnered with Hillsdale College to create.
Can Electoral Count Act Reform Happen in This Congress?
In an election year, Congress basically shuts down by the beginning of the fall. Given summer recess schedules in both houses, that means the next few weeks offer pretty much the final stretch of real legislative days. Looking at the plausible to-do list for that period, there are three significant items that stand some chance of passage: a much-trimmed reconciliation bill advancing some Democratic priorities, a bicameral compromise version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (different forms of which have passed both houses), and reforms of the Electoral Count Act.
