Flotsam and Jetsam - A Light Smattering

A little light today, probably a result of a four day holiday. Still working, Paul Bedard at WaEx observes the Trump lead grows as 84% say Bidenomics hurting them. A word of warning here though, inflation is slowly going down, and political memories tend to be short; people will slowly grow to accept the enormous price hikes of the first Biden years. You probably can't count on that as your primary issue. FX Hedge, Powell Says the Quiet Part Out Loud "The Fed Is Making It Up on the Fly." But isn't that what we all do as adults? It doesn't come with an instruction manual, and economics isn't physics.  From Fox, GREG GUTFELD rants Western civilization is on the brink of collapse under Biden's divided nation

Here's the sports analogy: The U.S. is like a football team up by 35 points in the second half, and they start putting in scrubs and playing that damn prevent defense and suddenly, they're losing. Our elites don't have to worry about enough food or a warm bed, as they've replaced patriotism with a punitive ideology directed inward. We have a generation that sees everything through the lens of power, and it's infecting everything. Each relationship is now seen through the filter of the oppressed versus the oppressor. And you know which side they put you on.

-At Althouse, "He is up to his wattle in criminal indictments, and even if none land him in prison, the grinding stress and his advanced age look to be taking a toll on his mental acuity," writes Michelle Cottle, in "Why the Next Seven Weeks Are So Critical in the Race for President" (NYT):

Are Trump's rants increasingly disjointed? I had not noticed, and I am able to help thinking "Something ain’t right." For one thing, I don't use "ain't," especially in my thoughts. For another, I think the question about his "disjointed rants" has always only been do you want a President who speaks in that style? Can you understand him? To my ear, it's conversational, and I enjoy the lively spontaneity. It doesn't feel like mental derangement to me. It feels like a strength. Other politicians don't speak like that because they're more scripted and risk averse.

Jonathan Turley is disturbed when Roger Stone and Others Come for Casey DeSantis and Her Children "Mike Crispi posted a statement objecting to the following: “Casey Desantis campaigning: ‘I have a 6, 5 and a 3 year old’ ‘I have a 6, 5 and a 3 year old’ ‘I have a 6, 5 and a 3 year old’ ‘I have a 6, 5 and a 3 year old’ ‘Did you know I have a 6, 5 and a 3 year old?’” Stone then reportedly responded “SeeUNextTuesday,”using the common slang for the vulgar word (it is meant as a type of acronym beginning C-U). Stone has denied that he used the slur." Well, at least it was a little subtle. Political wives need thick skins. I don't see this as an attack on the children, just an attack on the overuse of children by the DeSantises. But Stone is kind of scummy. Beege Welborn at Hat Hair comments "The man is a pig. and this was one of the scummiest moves by one of the scummier Trump surrogates so far, and that’s saying a LOT. This isn’t winning any converts there, geniuses, and could well be turning off fence sitters. Is it so hard to be civilized? That campaign needs to wrangle these mouths and duck tape them shut along with taping their nasty little fingers together."

At Behind the Black, Did the Capitol police instigate violence by firing on peaceful January 6th demonstrators?

The video at the second link above ties together police bodycam footage with surveillance footage and smart phone footage — all time-stamped — and shows the Capitol security police firing on the demonstrators, who until that moment were doing nothing wrong and were simply standing in front of the Capitol in a crowd, chanting “USA! USA!”

Furthermore, the firing began at about 1:07 pm, eight minutes before Trump had finished giving his speech blocks away. The audience to his speech didn’t begin arriving at the Capitol until more than an hour later, when they found doors to the building open and security police welcoming them in. Thus, the violence, set off by the police, had nothing to do with anything Trump said.

It is quite possible that the officers in charge had panicked. They were undermanned (by order of Speaker Nancy Pelosi), and faced a large crowd of people with emotions running high. It is also possible they acted under orders to fire, working in tandem with the large cadre of undercover police agents (also revealed by this new footage) who were acting to spur the demonstrators toward violence, so as to create the impression of a violent “insurrection” that could be used by the Democrats subsequently for political purposes.

Ben Bartee at PJM wants you to WATCH: Nancy Pelosi’s Daughter Caught on Hidden Camera Admitting January 6 Was a Hoax. 

👀
On January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, was filming the events surrounding her mother for a documentary.
The following video was filmed during a meeting with a January 6 defendant whom she wanted desperately to be in her documentary.
Alexandra Pelosi… pic.twitter.com/Xh2aWUBJoN

— CitizenLenz (@CitizenLenz) July 18, 2023

At Althouse again, "The world is in a permacrisis currently with the COVID-19 aftermath, the war in Ukraine, climate change issues, political instability, the energy crisis in Europe, recession and the cost-of-living crisis." "That's a quote that appeared in the Millennium Post Newspaper (Nexis) on 18 December 18, 2022 and that is one of 3 quotes the OED chose to exemplify the word "permacrisis," which, it announces today, it has just added to its dictionary. . . .  I think of "permacrisis" as as a political strategy to make people feel that we are always in special dire circumstances, justifying unusual emergency measures, and warranting the sacrifice of our personal pleasure and freedom. I can't help thinking: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.""

NYPo reports on a Pro-Israel teacher who hides in Queens high school as ‘radicalized’ students riot: ‘They want her fired’. Nick Arama at Red State finds it Frightening: Students Rampage Thru High School to Hunt Down Teacher for Going to Pro-Israel Rally. Althouse  "Hundreds of 'radicalized' kids rampaged through the halls of a Queens high school this week for nearly two hours after they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally..." They need to find some ringleaders and put them in jail. Campus Reform wonders Will the med school prof who helped remove posters of kidnapped Israelis be held to UPenn's nondiscrimination policy? "Canary Mission shared footage of UPenn Assistant Professor Mohammed Alghamdi wielding scissors as students took down images of Israelis who have been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. Alghamdi is still listed as a professor on the university web page." As Insty notes MEANWHILE THEY’RE TRYING TO FIRE AMY WAX FOR INSENSITIVITY.

At RedState  Teri Christoph claims Woke Christmas Tree Farm in Virginia Posts Shameful Antisemitic Message on Welcome Sign, "Ceasefire now." Sorry, I don't see it as antisemitic, just mililtarily a very bad idea to impose on the Israelis. Insty at his NYPo gig, In red America, standing up for Israel isn’t controversial. Arnold Kling at In My Tribe wonders Is the Overton Window Moving to the Right? "It seems ok to criticize the social justice movement; will it become ok to criticize Islam?" "The Overton Window has clearly moved for many American Jews. The Ivy League is now disgraced. Imagine if on college campuses there were students marching around in Ku Klux Klan hoods shouting racist slogans. And imagine they were doing this right after the death of George Floyd. That is what the pro-Hamas demonstrations feel like to Jewish students." 

Smitty at The Other McCain says The Swampeoisie are the Colonial Occupiers. 

So, if Michael Hayden is equating armed, religiously faithful Americans with Hamas, does that mean that Hayden and the Swampeoisie are the Colonial Occupiers? While I reject General Hayden in general (heh) and his cheap smear in particular, if he’s stipulating a false equivalence between patriots and terrorists, at some point, it could become needful to move the accusation a bit closer to reality.

Just because we lack even the tiniest interest in fomenting violence does not mean that violence mirrors that disinterest in us. Peace sells, but who’s buying? The well-prepared purchase that peace. I wonder if Hayden has the self-awareness to grasp that he and the Swampeoisie are the baddies?

MSN,  Employers Are Fed Up With College ‘Waste’ — Here’s Who They’re Hiring Instead  "The study, involving 70,000 small businesses, revealed that 67% of employers believe higher education institutions are not graduating students with relevant skills needed in today’s business community." At Twitchy, 'Constitution Says No.' The Left is FURIOUS Conservatives Are Suing to Stop Racial Discrimination. Florida's Voice says Florida bill bans pronoun requirements, penalties at the workplace. "The bill, HB 599, also prevents non-profit organizations that receive state funding from requiring, as a condition of employment, any “training, instruction, or activity on sexual orientation.”"

At Am Wire, ‘Sore loser’: Lefty Loudon County prosecutor slammed for prolonged public tantrum since humiliating loss, per Conan, "What is best in life?" . . . "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women."