Flotsam and Jetsam - Hot Takes With Cranberries

Another Sunday morning, and the news is thankfully sparse. Either that, or I did a lousy job of collecting.

From Spiked!, Fauci and the great Covid cover-up, "Did scientists mislead the world about the origins of the pandemic?" Some did, some didn't. I hesitate to consider Fauci a scientist, as he had long given up active research for bureaucratic infighting. At No Pasaran! "Fauci did his bit, played his part, and was lavishly rewarded by the press": So how did a virus with a ~.02%-.04% mortality rate become 24/7 headline news? It became battle prep for the 2020 election steal. The Great Victor Davis Hanson at Da Signal thinks the Hearing Represented ‘Complete Career and Personal Destruction of Anthony Fauci.’ Leslie Eastman at LI asserts Dr. Deborah Birx Must Be Next Focal Point in Covid Mitigation Policy Investigations, "Fauci and Birx are the Bobbsey Twins of the covid pandemic disaster." I'm still not sure I see a crime in her actions, but she has a lot to explain. The Vigilant Fox @VigilantFox, " Stephen A. Smith publicly APOLOGIZES to Kyrie Irving after calling him "selfish" for refusing the COVID jab. "Hindsight-wise, it didn’t make him stubborn or selfish. It made him BRAVE." "I watched Dr. Fauci on Capitol Hill yesterday, and the person I thought about most was Kyrie Irving..." Da Signal reports The New Ban Hawley Wants After Fauci’s Senate Appearance. "Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is set to announce legislation to bar all federal employees from soliciting cash prizes while they are in office. The announcement follows the senator grilling Dr. Anthony Fauci about the millions of dollars he pocketed while allegedly contributing to the spread and cover-up of the COVID-19 pandemic."

At 1945, Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National SecurityA Year Ago Putin Had the Momentum. Now Russia Is Importing Fuel and Ukraine Is Taking Ground. "Last August, Vladimir Putin arrived on American soil expecting a favorable deal. Russia held the momentum, the February White House meeting with Zelenskyy was still fresh, and administration officials spoke as though Ukraine would eventually have to settle. A year on, the picture has inverted. Ukraine’s own missiles and drones have reached Russian refineries and logistics far behind the front, Moscow has extended its gasoline export ban and turned to imports, and Washington has moved toward joint drone production and Patriot interceptor licensing. Whether that amounts to a permanent shift is still an open question."

NewsWeek admits Trump Was Right. Six Months Post-Maduro, Venezuelan Recovery Defies Critics. Proving once again, you can vote yourself into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.

News Wax reports Tankers Hit Near Hormuz as Iran Warns of Wider Disruption. From Resp State, Houthis v. Saudi Arabia: Round 2. This time it's regional. "After fresh clashes with the Yemeni military group, Riyadh finds itself at the center of overlapping wars and skirmishes, including Iran and Iraq." Carlo Carrasco sees America Sanctioning Iran’s Mahan Air Network and IRGC-Linked Front Company. At LI Vijeta Uniyal reports U.S. Warns its Citizens to Leave Middle East Citing ‘Unforeseen Escalation’ With Iran.

From Quotulatiousness "Nobody “designed” capitalism" "One of Karl Marx’s cleverer notions was to come up with a label for the economic system that had slowly emerged from the feudal period in Europe. It wasn’t ever the result of some overarching plan or campaign, it was just the easiest way for producers and consumers to connect without coercion or force. It had no real name until its declared enemy named it." That's why I prefer to call it "the free market," which to be fair, has never really been tried either.

Bad Hombre @Badhombre, "Let’s take it from the top again. Here’s the Democrat lineup going into the midterms: - A diagnosed-bipolar Asian chick with a history of self-harm who’s been institutionalized in a psychiatric ward and overdosed on lithium, and wants to get rid of Thanksgiving. - A guy who plays with a Dr. Fauci doll, proclaims his “love for trans kids,” and met his girlfriend at a gay bar. - A guy who dresses up as a mechanic for fun, married his cousin, and knocked her up twice. - A guy who frequents events where participants get pissed on in a kiddie pool while wearing assless chaps, whose claim to fame is lowering the age of consent for men to have sex with boys as young as 12, decriminalizing knowingly infecting others with AIDS, and supports allowing convicted pedophiles to run for school board. - A Haitian chick who thinks the United States is a “f*cking disgrace,” wants to abolish borders, law enforcement, and prisons. - A Muslim guy who believes the U.S. deserved 9/11, is funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and whose wife and father-in-law have terrorist connections." At Twitchy, Bill Maher Ends Anti-Communist Rant by Saying He’d Vote for Sarah Palin Over DSA-Aligned Dems. InfantryDort @infantrydort, "This might be the strongest piece Bill Maher has ever made. The communists are here. They’re actually here. Right now. Taking power. What are we going to do about it?" Quote Bill Maher @billmaher, "I'm not voting for anyone who thinks the wrong side won the Cold War or cheers for the Intifada like it's the World Cup." The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee, "To Avoid Criticism For Hooking Up With His Cousin, Troy Jackson Converts To Islam, and Maine Dems Explain They Can Either Do 'No Rape' Or 'No Incest' But Not Both.

Fusilli Spock @awstar11, "Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hunter Biden is shitting on President’s children. Does he know he’s Hunter Biden?" Quote Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_, "Hunter Biden: “As it relates to Donald Trump, fuck him. Fuck his son. Fuck his daughter. I mean it, all of them, the whole family down to the grandchildren. I hope for the rest of time their names will live ignominy. They have done the most awful things to my family and to me”"

News Wax, Florida Man Gets 2 Years for Threatening Trump "The Justice Department said court documents show that Villavicencio made online threats of violence directed at President Donald Trump, former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., over several months." Not really big into ideological consistency.

Quotulatiousness covers The invasion of Ceuta. "In the last 48 hours vast numbers of people have learned that Spain still has territory on the African continent, as Morocco enables thousands of young men to cross into the Spanish city of Ceuta. The Spanish government has, to time of writing, refused to declare a state of emergency or to send military forces to assist the municipal authorities in Ceuta. In Spiked, Brendan O’Neill thinks this heralds the end of globalism" At NYPo, Fed-up Spaniards lash out at socialist prime minister after migrant invasion: ‘A third-world country’ Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin, "The level of gaslighting we've had in the last 24 hours is absolutely off the charts. You can fuck off with this shit: - "Cueta is in Africa so it's not really Spain" Pearl Harbor is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean so it's not really the US then? - "A lot of them have gone home" If 60,000 people break into your home and then leave that is better than them all squatting in your home permanently, but they still broke into your house. - "They're refugees fleeing the climate crisis" (James O'Brien came up with this gem) No, they're not. If I was fleeing the climate crisis, I'd bring my wife and kids, not 59,999 other men. They want a better life. They can apply for a visa and if they meet our rules, we'll decide which ones we want to accept and which we do not. Otherwise they're queue-barging and can fuck off. - They can't get from to Cueta to mainland Europe because there's a stretch of water and a border there. Uhh, we're letting boatloads of illegal immigrants into Britain on the daily. There is absolute no evidence European countries have any desire to enforce their borders. - It's not a migrant invasion, it's just Morocco doing it on purpose Oh, it's an *organised* invasion. What a relief." Boxy @Boxy_FT, "The leftoid position is now, without exaggeration: "diversity is our strength and there's nothing wrong with Muslim migrants, but Israel is using them to punish us"" Quote LPC @landpalestine, "Spanish actor Javier Bardem says The migration of 60,000 people from Morocco to Spain was planned by Israel because Spain opposes the genocide in Palestine." Sir Doge of the Coin @dogeofficialceo, "BREAKING: Bonnie Blue is reportedly “furious” after Pedro Sánchez STOLE her idea to let 60,000 migrant men inside in 24 hours."

From Fox, Liberal court stuns with ruling that hands Trump major immigration win. "The panel of two Biden appointees and one Trump appointee ruled on TPS for migrants from South Sudan and Ethiopia." AP whines Trump administration pushes tougher English rules for Mexican train crews crossing into the US. Ned Ryun @nedryun, "I’m pretty sure that’s not what we voted for. . ." Quote The Post Millennial @TPostMillennial, "DHS Sec. Mullin to sanctuary cities: "I'm not handling things like the past secretary had. Let's work to get the worst of the worst off the streets. And then you won't see me in your cities as much. In fact, you probably won't even see us at all.""

At the Telegraph, Berlin Pride attack shows the insanity of the Left’s love affair with Islamism. RAW EGG NATIONALIST @Babygravy9, "I really don't think "You're lucky we've got paid security to prevent you being murdered by Islamists for speaking at the world's oldest and most prestigious bastion of free expression" is quite the pro-immigration flex you think it is, love." Quote Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat. "WOW. A student at the Oxford Union tells Tommy Robinson he is lucky they've put security on for him otherwise their Pro-Islam supporters outside would beat him to death." Quotulatiousness explores Why UK crime victims’ families always sound so similar talking to the media

Driscoll at Insty, AND THEN HE SHOUTED, CAMBRIDGE IS MAGA COUNTRY! "Cambridge Can — but Evidently Won’t — Catch Jason Arday. Arday is one of the U.K.’s newest academic superstars, a true success story as the youngest black scholar ever to become full professor at the University of Cambridge, Britain’s second-best institution of higher learning. His life story is truly impressive, an inspiring tale of a man rising to a prestigious position from severe disadvantages in life — Arday claims to suffer from an autism so severe that he was entirely nonverbal until the age of eleven, and wholly illiterate until learning to read at the age of 18. Now, not only is he a national pseudo-celebrity, as a “high-functioning neurodivergent,” he’s at the top of the academic hierarchy. The devastatingly thorough report by Nathan Cofnas, a scholar at Ghent University (and a former research fellow at Cambridge), summarizes Arday’s remarkable vault up the academic ladder after claiming to have achieved literacy only after he started attending Sixth Form..." As I've always said regarding the many academic plagiarism scandals with DEI involvement, nobody really expect anyone to read that shit. They just got unlucky that AI would make checking easy after they plagiarized.

Hat Hair's John Sexton reports Amnesty Apologizes to J.K. Rowling's Crisis Center for Women. ""We regret that this briefing was uploaded to our website without going through the established internal review processes that are in place to ensure consistency, accuracy and alignment with Amnesty International UK's positions. Its use of language does not reflect the position of Amnesty International UK which is why it was promptly removed." They just couldn't help themselves, it was a reflex. Driscoll has one of his DISPATCHES FROM THE HARRIS ADMINISTRATION: Brian Cates - Political Columnist & Pundit @drawandstrike, "Griner was supposed to come out eventually as trans. And the WNBA was all poised to celebrate that. You all know this, right? Two things ruined it. 1. Caitlin Clark 2. Donald Trump getting reelected." and "Oh forgot one. 3. And the sudden rise of Sophie Cunningham."