New Announcement Expected for Tonight's Episode of 'Tucker Carlson' on Fox News

The interesting thing about this pre-announcement, which I saw earlier on Twitter, is how exactly the ratings jump for Carlson's show is what I'd been predicting in some of my blog posts here. 

Fox News is clearly set to invest much more in programming involving Tucker, and while I do like Ingraham (and to some extent Hannity), Tucker is "must-watch" TV for me every evening at 5:00pm Pacific time.

So, if you're not checking out Tucker, what are you waiting for?!!

Tucker Carlson Tonight is one of the top-rated shows in the history of cable news. According to Nielsen Media Research, the program averaged 3.6 million viewers last month, and 653,000 in the younger Adults 25-54 demo, topping both CNN and MSNBC by double-digits in overall viewers. Recently, the show notched the highest-rated monthly viewership of any cable news program in history, with 5.4 million viewers. It has been number one in the 8 PM/ET time slot for 46 consecutive months with total viewers. Carlson has also eclipsed broadcast network programming since Memorial Day of last year. In 2020, he made history by hosting one of the two FNC shows ever to average more than 4 million viewers a night. Since moving to 8 PM/ET, Tucker Carlson Tonight has significantly improved performance in the time slot, which was previously held by The O’Reilly Factor. Carlson’s audience has grown by nearly 35 percent in total viewers, and more than 40 percent in the key Adults 25-54 demo.

One thing I've noted, for example, when I've posted videos of Tucker, is how totally hilarious he is. I can't stop laughing sometimes while watching, and my wife loves him too. 

So, have a great evening, as I'm about ready to flick on Fox News right now.

Check back here later for more excellent blog content, and thanks for checking out my blog.

Briahna Joy Gray, Former National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign, Slams Joe Biden's Response to Question on Student Debt Forgiveness (VIDEO)

I watched parts of China Joe's "CNN Town Hall" (love-fest), and I thought his response on the student loan question was a disaster. Now, it's not that he didn't address it; he did. But Biden said he'd only go as high as $10,000, and obviously those idiot young people taking out hundreds of thousands in student loans, and who are clearly expecting a big "pay-off," in the literal sense of the federal government "forgiving" the student loans that no one forced them to take, aren't too pleased about it.

Now, this Briahna Joy Gray lady, a former Bernie spokeswoman, has some thoughts, and they're delivered in that tricky leftist kinda way, in which debt forgiveness is really about "alleviating" poverty. Shoot, we can straight-up alleviate poverty by just sending everybody a check --- and I mean everybody, like my 25-year-old son, who himself is taking out loans for college. So, what to do? Hey, if Biden caves to the progressive's debt-forgiveness crap, is he going to make that forgiveness retroactive? Because I'm still paying down the $70,000 or so I borrowed for my Ph.D. program. And while I'm not "poor," I could sure use the money, just like all those idiots youngsters taking out loans for their worthless "gender studies" degrees.

Watch, at the "Rising," with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti:  

Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio's Conservative Pioneer, Dies at 70

At Fox News, via Mediagazer (with all its links to Twitter commentary on the "Great One's" death), "Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70 after a battle with lung cancer."

Indeed, Nicole Hemmer, the author of Messengers of the Right, has a great thread hereself, here: "Rush Limbaugh radically transformed the Republican Party. He elevated conservative media into a coequal branch of party politics, and pioneered a style of rhetoric, argument, and entertainment that would come to define conservative politics.... The things we now think of as particularly Trumpian features of conservatism — the insults, the conspiracies, the blend of entertainment and politics and anger — Limbaugh had been doing it for a quarter-century before Trump showed up to the party."

And see the obligatory leftist grave-dancing, at Twitchy, "‘I’m glad he’s dead’: ‘Rest in piss’ trends as compassionate, tolerant liberals dance on Rush Limbaugh’s grave."

Global Warming is Man-Made

In light of today's postings, "Totally Predictable: Unlike the Texas Energy Grid, the Insane Left's Response to Power Outrage is Straight Outta the 'Climate Change' Playbook," and "California's Dumb Democrats Introduce Bill to Ban Fracking by 2027," I'm re-upping this graphic from back in the day, which appeared originally at the "People's Cube," from the Obama days of yore, heh.

Now Joe Klein, of "Anonymous" Fame, is Writing at the Bulwark?

I guess the folks over at the Bulwark ran out of Lincoln Project sexual predator-enablers to post their "Never Trump" crap at their crappy "Never Trump" website.

So now they're going with Joe Klein? Joe Klein, really? I haven't heard a peep outta that guy, since, I don't know, I saw "Primary Colors" in theaters? 

But here he is, at the bullsh*t Bulwark, and whether he's hip to the ignominious origins of that foul outlet is anyone's guess, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He's blathering on about "unity," as if such a touchy-feely notion's gonna fix one iota of our entrenched mutual partisan hatred and polarization in this country, a hatred that's actually gotten worse since the new "unity" president (China Joe Biden) was elected.

See, "What We Mean When We Talk About 'Unity'":

It’s not about voting on a policy. It’s about fighting the insurgents trying to destroy our democracy.

Sure Joe. Who cares about "voting on policy" when you've got a majority party now in Washington filled with demonic Democrats located far to the left of Castro's Cuba. 

Brilliant! 

California's Dumb Democrats Introduce Bill to Ban Fracking by 2027

Following-up, "Totally Predictable: Unlike the Texas Energy Grid, the Insane Left's Response to Power Outrage is Straight Outta the 'Climate Change' Playbook."

Officials in Texas obviously screwed up, and no doubt a lot of those official are dolts, and mindbogglingly, some of these ERCOT Einsteins live out of state!

But never fear! Here comes the dumbf*ck Democrats of California to the rescue, blasting out of the gate to claim the prize for the most idiotic response to the "climate emergency," and we're not even freezing here, in this once-"Golden State." *Eyes rolling out of my eye sockets!* 

And wouldn't you know it, the biggest stupidity prizewinner is Senator Scott Wiener, "Dolt" from San Francisco. Wiener, if you happen to know, is the author of state legislation a few years back that decriminalized deliberately infecting others with HIV, so if someone was a rampant and promiscuous gay sex addict, hey, buddy, you're off the hook! Infect and kill as many unsuspecting people as you can! We'll look the other way, and say, "It's all good!"

And Wiener has tried for years, and failed miserably, to get the state legislature to pass laws that would actually BAN housing developments outside of the big urban areas, like, you guessed it, San Francisco. Thank goodness brighter minds prevailed, or more powerful lobbying groups, or whatever, because the one thing this state needs to fix our problems --- like the state's exorbitant housing costs and the dearth of high-paying jobs OUTSIDE of the big coastal enclaves --- is MORE residential (and commercial) development in the more sparsely populated parts of California. Duh. 

So, no, I'm not letting up on Texas' stupid state leaders, but California's idiocy is truly hard to beat!

See, at the Sacramento Bee, "Citing climate emergency, California Democrats introduce a bill to ban fracking by 2027":

California would ban hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, by 2027, under a bill introduced in the State Senate on Wednesday.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Sen. Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, also would prohibit the issuance of new permits for fracking, acid well stimulation treatments, cyclic steaming and water and steam flooding beginning in 2022.

In addition, the bill would prevent new or modified permits for oil and gas production from operating within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, health care facilities or long-term care institutions by 2022...

California's cult of Democrat warmists won't stop, of course, so even if yesterday's bill fails, one way or another these clueless leftists will indeed get more bans passed to limit the use of fossil fuels in the state. 

And sure, look at Texas and their rolling blackouts in the literally "once in a century" arctic freeze. But here in California, we're basically one big desert with some nice, Mediterranean weather on the coasts. (Santa Barbara is literally heavenly, but even back in the 1990s, "no-growth" leftists dominated the county's policy-making, and it wasn't until 1999 that local leaders approved permits for a Costco wholesales store to go ahead and build a warehouse.) *My eyes are still stuck in the back of my head from those eye-rolls back in the day.* 

Keep in mind, we very often get rolling blackouts in the SUMMER, because of course people want to pump their air-conditioners. So, just wait: Idiots like Scott Wiener will probably try to ban the "cooling stations" set up every summer, so folks --- especially elderly folks --- can go somewhere and get into the cool shade. *I can't even sometimes, sheesh.*

But what can you do? Move? I would, but I'm stuck here in this la-la land of loony leftists until I retire, which won't be for another 10 years or so. Then what, move to Texas? Oh brother, hopefully folks down in Austin get their act together. In fact, if folks like Ron DeSantis are still running things in the "Sunshine State," maybe I'll move to Tampa Bay, heh.

Totally Predictable: Unlike the Texas Energy Grid, the Insane Left's Response to Power Outrage is Straight Outta the 'Climate Change' Playbook

Everybody saw the first few days of reports, including at outlets like the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Tribune. 

But now these same outlets, and others on the left, like Vice and Yahoo, are pushing back against "internet memes" pointing the blame to Texas' screwed up decision to use "wind farms" to generate power. No doubt some of the natural gas producers also shut down due to the freeze, but c'mon! The idiot "warmists" need to get real. Alternative energy sources are not enough, ever, to keep a state running when extreme weather conditions hit. 

Of all places, CNN has a balanced take, from yesterday, "Frozen wind turbines, limited gas supplies and rolling blackouts: Behind Texas' energy woes":

Some of the warmest places in Texas, where rolling power outages are occurring across the chilly state, are inside cars and trucks parked in the driveway of a home without electricity.

Chey Louis of Irving told CNN his family in Grand Prairie had planned a small socially distanced gathering to celebrate his younger brother's birthday.

But instead of celebrating, they have spent the day trying to stay warm. "They have been in the car all day with the heater on," he said. "The inside of their home has dropped below 40 degrees."

Rolling power blackouts were ordered across Texas on Monday as a winter storm and frigid temperatures gripped the state and knocked out service to more than 4 million customers.

The rotating outages could continue until the state's weather emergency ends, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a major grid operator that controls about 90% of the state's electric load.

Gov. Gregg Abbott said in a Twitter post that the state's power grid has not been compromised.

"The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen. This includes the natural gas & coal generators," Abbott wrote, adding that ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas are working to get power back online and will give priority to residential consumers.

Frozen wind turbines and limited gas supplies have hampered the ability to generate enough power, according to a statement from ERCOT.

ERCOT is the "Electric Reliability Council of Texas." Those ERCOT dolts obviously messed up, but at least they're not outright lying about failed wind turbines, unlike the stupid progs pushing back against "internet memes" (apparently, especially the one above). 

Everything is so stupid. Especially everything having to do with stupid leftists. 

And to be honest, it's not just stupidity on the left. I watched Sean Hannity's interview with Texas Governor Greg Abbott the other night, and Hannity could get anything out other than a few softball questions. I mean, c'mon, this is the state's governor. Put the heat on the mofo, sheesh. 

I guess that's one reason I don't watch Hannity that much: While he's a great guy, sometimes it's okay to say the "home team" screwed up. That's called having some "integrity." Sheesh.

Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino Implosion (VIDEO)

You'd think this would have been big national news, at least ahead of time, but Trump's Atlantic City hotel and casino was blown to bits this morning, it turns out. 

And NYT does have it, and the reporters were no doubt giddy as they pushed the publish button.

See, "Watch the Trump Era in Atlantic City End With 3,000 Sticks of Dynamite":

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — It was not the biggest or the best implosion ever.

An auction for the right to detonate the dynamite to begin the implosion of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., fizzled.

Front-row seats to view Wednesday morning’s spectacle were sold on the cheap. Onlookers in cars hoping to witness the symbolic finale of the former president’s casino empire in the seaside resort city were charged $10 and herded into a lot most recently used as a pandemic-era food distribution site.

The implosion of what was once the premier gaming destination in Atlantic City came less than a month after its best-known former owner, Donald J. Trump, left the White House after losing re-election and became the first president in history to be impeached twice. He was acquitted on Saturday of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

The tower came down shortly after 9 a.m. amid a huge cloud of dust and an eruption of cheers.

“It’s an end of a not-so-great era,” said Jennifer Owen, 50, who bid $575 to win a front-row seat at a V.I.P. breakfast in an oceanfront pavilion with a direct view of the implosion...

This Ms. Owen must've been a "Never Trumper." She paid $575 to watch? Pfft. It's obviously not that exciting, but Trump haters gonna hate, and watching a Trump property come crumbling down could be replacement therapy after the former president was acquitted during his "snap" impeachment ordeal on Capitl Hill last week.

Chris Cuomo's Conflicts of Interest (VIDEO)

My wife and I have been talking about this for weeks. 

You see, we were both watching a lot of CNN back in March, April, May or so of last year, and some of these segments were the "family hour" on Chris Cuomo's prime-time show on CNN. Honestly, I thought some of the brotherly back-and-forth was pretty funny, although even then I was thinking, "This is probably not a good look for a purportedly "non-partisan" news outlet," but what the heck? Comic relief during the pandemic? And of course, no one knew then what we know now, and what we know now, about Andrew Cuomo, is criminal.

In any case, I watched Governor Cuomo's press conference on Monday, and he looked like he was lying remorselessly. I think later I even caught a critical segment discussing the governor on CNN, but not with Chris Cuomo. Maybe HE should be fired. 

In any case, WaPo, of all places, has the story, "CNN’s Chris Cuomo is reminding us why conflicts of interest poison the news":

On his Monday night CNN program, host Chris Cuomo provided an update on the biggest story of the past year. “Now, good news: When it comes to coronavirus, we’ve had the best week we’ve seen so far, in terms of getting people vaccinated. And every week since New Year’s, the rate has only improved,” said the host.

Here’s an update that he skipped: Just hours before “Cuomo Prime Time” aired, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo held a news conference to address his state’s nursing-home scandal. Under his leadership, the state has shown a staggering lack of transparency regarding the extent of coronavirus-related deaths in New York nursing homes. “We should have provided more information faster,” said Cuomo in the press briefing, which addressed an undercount of nursing-home deaths in the state.

That story — the hottest on the covid beat on Monday — didn’t make the cut on “Cuomo Prime Time.” Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise: Chris Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo are brothers, and journalists can’t reliably cover their brothers.

Except that Chris Cuomo did cover his brother, famously, during the early months of the pandemic. As the coronavirus spread around the country, Andrew Cuomo turned in more than 10 appearances on “Cuomo Prime Time.” The heartwarming moments stick out: In May, Chris Cuomo presented a gigantic test swab to joke about the governor’s televised coronavirus test. They laughed about their parents quite a bit, too. At the end of one appearance, Chris Cuomo thanked his brother for coming on the air. “Mom told me I had to,” replied the governor. The TV host rolled his eyes...

Well, it's not so funny now, is it?

And if you're watching Fox News at all, do try to catch a segment with Janice Dean, the network's weather-caster. She lost her in-laws (husband's parents) after they were sent to nursing homes during the height of New York's deadly pandemic, and Ms. Dean has never been political in her life, and certainly not on her network, but she's been out there with all cannons firing, and wants prosecution and imprisonment for the perpetrators of the deaths of thousands of thousands of New York's elderly covid-19 victims.

What an awful story, man.

The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot

It's Glenn Greenwald, one of the only online personalities, of any stripe, who gets what's going on. 

On Substack:  

Insisting on factual accuracy does not make one an apologist for the protesters. False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels.

What took place at the Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly a politically motivated riot. As such, it should not be controversial to regard it as a dangerous episode. Any time force or violence is introduced into what ought to be the peaceful resolution of political conflicts, it should be lamented and condemned.

But none of that justifies lying about what happened that day, especially by the news media. Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.

Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.

One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.”

A second New York Times article from later that day — bearing the more dramatic headline: “He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer, Then Was Killed by a Pro-Trump Mob” — elaborated on that story...

After publication of these two articles, this horrifying story about a pro-Trump mob beating a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher was repeated over and over, by multiple journalists on television, in print, and on social media. It became arguably the single most-emphasized and known story of this event, and understandably so — it was a savage and barbaric act that resulted in the harrowing killing by a pro-Trump mob of a young Capitol police officer.

It took on such importance for a clear reason: Sicknick’s death was the only example the media had of the pro-Trump mob deliberately killing anyone. In a January 11 article detailing the five people who died on the day of the Capitol protest, the New York Times again told the Sicknick story: “Law enforcement officials said he had been ‘physically engaging with protesters’ and was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

But none of the other four deaths were at the hands of the protesters: the only other person killed with deliberate violence was a pro-Trump protester, Ashil Babbitt, unarmed when shot in the neck by a police officer at close range. The other three deaths were all pro-Trump protesters: Kevin Greeson, who died of a heart attack outside the Capitol; Benjamin Philips, 50, “the founder of a pro-Trump website called Trumparoo,” who died of a stroke that day; and Rosanne Boyland, a fanatical Trump supporter whom the Times says was inadvertently “killed in a crush of fellow rioters during their attempt to fight through a police line.”

This is why the fire extinguisher story became so vital to those intent on depicting these events in the most violent and menacing light possible. Without Sicknick having his skull bashed in with a fire extinguisher, there were no deaths that day that could be attributed to deliberate violence by pro-Trump protesters. Three weeks later, The Washington Post said dozens of officers (a total of 140) had various degrees of injuries, but none reported as life-threatening, and at least two police officers committed suicide after the riot. So Sicknick was the only person killed who was not a pro-Trump protester, and the only one deliberately killed by the mob itself.

It is hard to overstate how pervasive this fire extinguisher story became...

Still more.

 

Brooke Baldwin Out at CNN (VIDEO)

Deadline has the story, and Baldwin's decision to leave the network so far appears to be a personal one. But I've watched her for years, and while she's not a hardline leftist, like the idiot Jake Tapper, she does get emotional when she's reporting stories about "race" and "black lives matter," etc. So, yeah, she's got some privilege to work through, whatever other motivations she has for leaving.

Here's Deadline, "CNN Anchor Brooke Baldwin Announces Departure From Network."

I also actually just flipped over to CNN this morning, just as Ms. Baldwin started out with her personal announcement. She's a sweet lady, and no doubt she'll land on her feet. She's got a book coming out in April, so I imagine working on that book has been part of her personal "evolution," as all white people are supposed to "evolve" according to the diktats of the many mediocre radical left racial "journalists" at CNN, and elsewhere (here's looking at you, New York Times, and especially Nikole Hannah-Jones, who announced the other day she's "taking a break" from Twitter, after getting caught doxxing the guy from the Free Beacon). 

Gal Gadot Scenes

At Celeb Jihad, "Gal Gadot Mile High Scene."

I remember during the promotions for the first "Wonder Woman," when in one interview Ms. Gadot asked, "Do you like my breasts?"

Well, now I can definitely say, yes, I like them, dang!

What Went Wrong With the Texas Power Grid?

If you read my previous post, and clicked through at the W.S.J., some folks were apparently roaming the streets, wrapped in blankets, looking for food like a scene from "The Road."

And again, it's Texas, for crying out loud! Tucker Carlson was saying last night that if you're out of power in Texas, and families are freezing (and some folks have died), it'd be like starving to death inside a grocery store. Man, I'm still shaking my head. 

At the Houston Chronicle:

Millions of Texans were without heat and electricity Monday as snow, ice and frigid temperatures caused a catastrophic failure of the state’s power grid.

The Texas power grid, powered largely by wind and natural gas, is relatively well equipped to handle the state’s hot and humid summers when demand for power soars. But unlike blistering summers, the severe winter weather delivered a crippling blow to power production, cutting supplies as the falling temperatures increased demand.

Natural gas shortages and frozen wind turbines were already curtailing power output when the Arctic blast began knocking generators offline early Monday morning.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which is responsible for scheduling power and ensuring the reliability of the electrical network, declared a statewide power generation shortfall emergency and asked electricity delivery companies to reduce load through controlled outages.

More than 4 million customers were without power in Texas, including 1.4 million in the Houston area, the worst power crisis in the state in a decade. The forced outages are expected to last at least through part of Tuesday, the state grid manager said.

CenterPoint Energy, the regulated utility that delivers electricity to Houston-area homes and provides natural gas service, started rolling blackouts in the Houston region at the order of state power regulators. It said customers experiencing outages should be prepared to be without power at least through Monday.

“How long is it going to be? I don’t know the answer,” said Kenny Mercado, executive vice president at the Houston utility. “The generators are doing everything they can to get back on. But their work takes time and I don’t know how long it will take. But for us to move forward, we have got to get generation back onto the grid. That is our primary need.”

Dan Woodfin, ERCOT’s senior director of system operations, said the rolling blackouts are taking more power offline for longer periods than ever before. An estimated 34,000 megawatts of power generation — more than a third of the system’s total generating capacity — had been knocked offline by the extreme winter weather amid soaring demand as residents crank up heating systems.

The U.S. Energy Department, in response to an ERCOT request, issued an order late Monday authorizing power plants throughout the state to run at maximum output levels, even if it results in exceeding pollution limits.

Ed Hirs, an energy fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, blamed the failures on the state’s deregulated power system, which doesn’t provide power generators with the returns needed to invest in maintaining and improving power plants.

“The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.

Winter Storm Creates Havoc Across the U.S. (VIDEO)

I was in Houston in November, and it was very pleasant weather. If someone would have told me then that an arctic freeze was to descent over the city in February, I'd have been a bit credulous. But it's all out there to see now, and some folks on Twitter have been sharing their experiences of trying to keep warm. 

Rolling blackouts? In Texas? We get those in California, because, of course, the once-"Golden State" isn't so golden anymore. But Texas is a fossil fuels powerhouse, so it's gotta hurt, more than the chilling freeze.

At WSJ, "From power outages to disrupted Covid-19 vaccinations, the snow, ice and stinging cold upend life for millions":

Millions of Americans were without power Tuesday after a winter storm brought snow, ice, blackouts and record-setting low temperatures to swaths of the U.S.

Nearly 75% of the Lower 48 states of the U.S. was under snow cover, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Snow Analysis daily report, including many places rarely hit by inclement weather. A week ago, 45% of the Lower 48 was under snow.

The snow, as well as freezing rain, created travel concerns from the eastern Great Lakes to New England on Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The Mississippi Department of Transportation said there were reports of ice on roads and bridges in 74 counties in the state.

Dangerously cold wind chills from Arctic air are expected to linger over the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley through midweek, the weather service said, adding that a new winter storm was emerging in the Southern Plains and would head toward the mid-South on Wednesday. On Monday night, a tornado struck Brunswick County, N.C., killing three people, according to the county Sheriff’s Office.

With electrical grids facing strain because of the extreme weather, rolling blackouts have been instituted in a number of states. Over five million customers across the U.S. were without electricity on Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.US. More than 4.5 million of those outages were in Texas, the website said.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electricity grid, began calling for rotating outages overnight on Sunday to avoid widespread blackouts. But the severe power shortages forced companies to curtail power beyond short rolling blackouts, with many customers losing electricity for much of the day.

Water utilities were also affected by the weather, with some cities urging residents to boil water to make it safe to drink, even though they have no power.

President Biden declared a state of emergency in Texas after receiving a request from Gov. Greg Abbott, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster-relief efforts. Mr. Abbott also sent the National Guard to conduct welfare checks and assist with emergency operations across the state...

Still more.

'China's Bitch Mitch' — Statement After Trump's Acquittal (VIDEO)

AoSHQ has some choice words about some conservative "cucks," including "China's Bitch" Mitch McConnel. 

See, "Trump Acquitted in Impeachment Farce; Seven (Soon to be Ex-) Republicans Vote to Convict; Establishment Shill and Chinese Agent Mitch McConnell Votes to Acquit, But Then Openly Calls for Trump to be Prosecuted/Persecuted with Further Criminal Show-Trials."

The "cucks" at Hot Air also come in for some hilarious thrashing as well.

Good times, lol.

'Burning Love'

Since I'm not driving much during the pandemic, I don't listen to the radio like I used to. But Friday I was taking my wife over to get her car serviced, and she has satellite radio in her car, and Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" came on. Elvis wasn't really "my generation," but I do remember "Burning Love" playing on the radio back when I was about 12-years-old, so that's the story.

The song was a "top-ten" hit, and the video's a real throwback, heh.

Slate Star Codex? The New York Times Slammed Again for Shoddy, Muckrake 'Journalism'

I guess it really was (is) a bad week for the Old Gray Lady, as I argued yesterday, here: "The 'Woke' Takeover at the New York Times Facing Pushback."

The NYT author is Cade Metz, who I've never heard of before, but who was getting slammed yesterday on Twitter, along with his newspaper, for an article on Scott Alexander, a psychiatrist by training who blogged at Slate Star Codex (which I only vaguely recall, and that's after myself being immersed in online debates and flame wars for over a decade; so you can see, perhaps, that a lot of NYT's reporting here is "inside baseball," and one of the biggest critiques of Metz is that he gets just about everything wrong at the article, entitled "Silicon Valley’s Safe Space.")

Below is Alexander's own response, at his Substack blog, as well a screenshot with some criticism pulled from Twitter earlier. (I can't seem to cut and paste from Alexander's Substack blog, and maybe that's by design, considering.) 

See, "Statement on the New York Times Article."

Lisa Murkowski Readies to Face Impeachment Vote Fallout (VIDEO)

As I was saying earlier, some of the Republicans who voted to convict might find their voters back home less than pleased.

Behold, already, the case of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who'll face her constituents in 2022.

At Politico, "Up in '22, Murkowski readies to face impeachment vote fallout."

Donald Trump's Statement on Impeachment Acquittal (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Trump Acquitted in Democrats' 'Snap' Impeachment: Seven G.O.P Senators Break With Former President in Second Sham Retaliation Bid to Punish Trump and His Supporters (VIDEO)":

“I want to first thank my team of dedicated lawyers and others for their tireless work upholding justice and defending truth.

“My deepest thanks as well to all of the United States Senators and Members of Congress who stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.

“Our cherished Constitutional Republic was founded on the impartial rule of law, the indispensable safeguard for our liberties, our rights and our freedoms.

“It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree. I always have, and always will, be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement, and the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice and without hate.

“This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago.

“I also want to convey my gratitude to the millions of decent, hardworking, law-abiding, God-and-Country loving citizens who have bravely supported these important principles in these very difficult and challenging times.

“Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!

“We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future.

“Together there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

“We remain one People, one family, and one glorious nation under God, and it’s our responsibility to preserve this magnificent inheritance for our children and for generations of Americans to come.

“May God bless all of you, and may God forever bless the United States of America.”

Trump Acquitted in Democrats' 'Snap' Impeachment: Seven G.O.P Senators Break With Former President in Second Sham Retaliation Bid to Punish Trump and His Supporters (VIDEO)

I've had CNN on this afternoon, and while it's still early, I can tell you, the folks over there are absolutely crushed that Trump wasn't convicted. 

And the seven Republican senators who voted to convict didn't do themselves any favors. G.O.P. Sen. Bill Cassidy has already been censured by the Louisiana Republican Party, so he's lucky he was just reelected to his Senate seat this last November, since he'll at least have six long years for his constituents to "forgive" him for his treason to the Trump cause. 

And no doubt some of the others Republicans who voted to convict will sooner or later pay the price for siding with the demonic Democrats in this farce of an impeachment.

In any case, FWIW, at the Los Angeles Times, "Despite 7 Republicans voting guilty, Senate acquits Trump in attack on Capitol":

WASHINGTON — The Senate acquitted former President Trump on Saturday in his second impeachment trial, even as seven members of his own party delivered a historic rebuke by joining Democrats in voting to convict him of inciting the deadly insurrection last month at the U.S. Capitol.

The 57-43 vote to find Trump guilty fell short of the 67 votes needed for conviction, but it was the most bipartisan such vote in any presidential impeachment trial, exposing the fractures in a Republican Party divided over its future after Trump’s presidency.

The vote was immediately followed by a blistering indictment of Trump on the Senate floor by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had voted to acquit saying that impeachment of a former president was unconstitutional, but painted Trump as an unhinged menace to democratic institutions.

The Republicans who voted for conviction were Sens. Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Trump is the first American president to be impeached twice, and this trial, which lasted just five days, was the first of a former president. The House impeached him last month on a charge of inciting the insurrection Jan. 6, when a violent mob of his supporters broke into and ransacked the Capitol. The assault left five people dead, including a police officer.

“It is now clear beyond doubt that Trump supported the actions of the mob, and so he must be convicted,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in his closing arguments. “If that’s not grounds for impeachment — if that’s not a high crime and misdemeanor against the republic of the United States of America — then nothing is. President Trump must be convicted for the safety and security of our democracy and our people.”

“This trial, in the final analysis, is not about Donald Trump,” Raskin continued. “The country and the world know who Donald Trump is. This trial is about who we are.”

In their closing arguments, as they did during the trial, House Democrats played a collection of videos that showed graphic violence from the rioters’ attack, including heretofore confidential security video that revealed how close the mob got to lawmakers and staff. The videos — some filmed just steps from where the trial took place — provided an emotional punch to the case...

You can see how the lame "MSM" news outlets are trying to frame things. The "seven" Republicans who voted to convict are the heroes of the story. The New York Times made it sound like acquittal was the first step toward some kind of ultimate reckoning within the Republican Party. That's of course highly doubtful, since now that Trump's acquitted he can toy with running for reelection in 2024 all he wants, and I doubt the state-level prosecutions around the country (in New York, especially) will have their intended effect of destroying Trump, much less his huge MAGA movement, which is the ultimate bane of deranged leftists everywhere.  

The 'Woke' Takeover at the New York Times Facing Pushback

It's not that big of a "pushback," but it's something to see, nevertheless.

One really interesting development is the role that Nikole Hannah-Jones played in the despicable firing of veteran Times correspondent Donald McNeil (covered here previously). 

For one thing, Hannah-Jones apparently attempted to "dox" Aaron Sibarium, a reporter at Free Beacon. He writes on Twitter: "It was my personal number, actually. And Hannah-Jones left it up for two days after someone 'mentioned it'."

I read the whole Slate piece linked by Sibarium, and while I can't verify a word Hannah-Jones says, she still comes out looking like the awful person she is. (She's the Pulitzer-winning "journalist" who hatched the mindbogglingly dumb "1619 Project," and she's bitter she's taken so much heat for it; and I don't believe for a second that she had "no role" in the firing of Donald McNeil; she's as "woke" as "woke can be, and being "woke" means being intolerant as hell, so you probably should just take her words with some heavy salt, that is, if you even want to read the Slate piece). 

See, "An Exhausting Week at the New York Times: Nikole Hannah-Jones on Donald McNeil’s resignation, what the reporting got wrong, and how she was involved."

And here's a second bit of inside information on what's happening at the Old Gray Lady. It turns out that Bret Stephens, who was formerly editor of the Jerusalem Post, before jumping ship from the Wall Street Journal for the Times (for reasons I guess having to do with his own "woke" evolution), wrote a scathing commentary piece that the totalitarian editors of the Times spiked, obviously because Stephens was hitting too close to home. 

In fact, someone at the Times leaked the Stephens op-ed to the New York Post, where it was published in full (no doubt to the bitter consternation of Nikole Hannah-Jones and her evil black allies working inside the Times' black radical "lynch gang" now despoiling --- even more than the Times could be already be despoiled --- the newspaper's reputation.

See, "Read the column the New York Times didn't want you to see":  

Every serious moral philosophy, every decent legal system and every ethical organization cares deeply about intention.

It is the difference between murder and manslaughter. It is an aggravating or extenuating factor in judicial settings. It is a cardinal consideration in pardons (or at least it was until Donald Trump got in on the act). It’s an elementary aspect of parenting, friendship, courtship and marriage.

A hallmark of injustice is indifference to intention. Most of what is cruel, intolerant, stupid and misjudged in life stems from that indifference. Read accounts about life in repressive societies — I’d recommend Vaclav Havel’s “Power of the Powerless” and Nien Cheng’s “Life and Death in Shanghai” — and what strikes you first is how deeply the regimes care about outward conformity, and how little for personal intention.

I’ve been thinking about these questions in an unexpected connection. Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year-old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur.

In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: “To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.”

In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.

“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would “work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language.”

This is not a column about the particulars of McNeil’s case. Nor is it an argument that the racial slur in question doesn’t have a uniquely ugly history and an extraordinary capacity to wound.

This is an argument about three words: “Regardless of intent.” Should intent be the only thing that counts in judgment? Obviously not. Can people do painful, harmful, stupid or objectionable things regardless of intent? Obviously.

Do any of us want to live in a world, or work in a field, where intent is categorically ruled out as a mitigating factor? I hope not.

That ought to go in journalism as much as, if not more than, in any other profession. What is it that journalists do, except try to perceive intent, examine motive, furnish context, explore nuance, explain varying shades of meaning, forgive fallibility, make allowances for irony and humor, slow the rush to judgment (and therefore outrage), and preserve vital intellectual distinctions?

Journalism as a humanistic enterprise — as opposed to hack work or propaganda — does these things in order to teach both its practitioners and consumers to be thoughtful. There is an elementary difference between citing a word for the purpose of knowledge and understanding and using the same word for the purpose of insult and harm. Lose this distinction, and you also lose the ability to understand the things you are supposed to be educated to oppose.

No wonder The Times has never previously been shy about citing racial slurs in order to explain a point. Here is a famous quote by the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater that has appeared at least seven times in The Times, most recently in 2019, precisely because it powerfully illuminates the mindset of a crucial political player.

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights’ and all that stuff.” Is this now supposed to be a scandal? Would the ugliness of Atwater’s meaning have been equally clearer by writing “n—, n—, n—”? A journalism that turns words into totems — and totems into fears — is an impediment to clear thinking and proper understanding.

So too is a journalism that attempts to proscribe entire fields of expression. “Racist language” is not just about a single infamous word. It’s a broad, changing, contestable category. There are many people — I include myself among them — who think that hardcore anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. That’s also official policy at the State Department and the British Labour Party. If anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and racist language is intolerable at The Times, might we someday forbid not only advocacy of anti-Zionist ideas, but even refuse to allow them to be discussed?

The idea is absurd. But that’s the terrain we now risk entering.

We are living in a period of competing moral certitudes, of people who are awfully sure they’re right and fully prepared to be awful about it. Hence the culture of cancellations, firings, public humiliations and increasingly unforgiving judgments. The role of good journalism should be to lead us out of this dark defile. Last week, we went deeper into it.

 

School Reopenings in California: Whiter, Wealthier Communities More Likely to Bring Back Students

Well, if poorer minority communities are less likely to open schools for in-person instruction, who's fault is that? Certainly not the kids'. 

I don't think California's as bad as Chicago, Illinois, but our state could certainly be doing a better job, and the blame can certainly be placed right at Governor Newsom's feet, who's likely to be facing recall, if those signature petitions, now circulating statewide, gain enough valid signatures. 

We'll see. We'll see.

Meanwhile, at LAT, "Schools in more affluent areas move faster to reopen than those in low-income communities":

South Whittier schools Supt. Gary Gonzales works seven days a week to move his elementary schools closer to reopening. But the barriers are significant: He’s looking for ways to get vaccines to teachers, negotiating with the union and closely monitoring coronavirus case numbers that show that the virus is still ravaging his community, even as case numbers fall countywide.

Gonzales knows his district’s students, almost all of whom are Latinos from low-income families, are struggling under remote learning. And he knows his community is hurting — the pandemic has claimed 118 lives in tiny South Whittier. A date for bringing students back to the classroom is unclear.

“It’s all kind of wait and see,” he said.

Thirty miles away, Supt. Wendy Sinnette of the La Cañada Unified School District, which has among the lowest coronavirus rates in the county and few students from low-income families, has been focused on reopening as many classrooms as possible since November, when students in transitional kindergarten through second grade returned to campus. Third-graders will be welcomed back on Tuesday.

Sinnette spends her days ensuring desks are socially distanced, teachers have KN-95 masks and acrylic plastic dividers are installed.

“When I go on campus and see the in-person instruction that’s happening, it really makes you understand why you’re doing all of this,” she said. “Kids need the structure, to be in school.”

A Times survey of more than 20 school districts throughout Los Angeles County in the past two weeks has found that districts in wealthier, whiter communities such as La Cañada are more likely to be moving full steam ahead to reopen elementary schools and have plans in place to welcome students back as soon as permitted — within as little as two weeks if coronavirus infection rates continue to decline.

They were among the first to bring back their youngest students under waivers and guidelines allowing in-person instruction for high-needs students. These districts are building on that momentum to quickly expand their reopening.

Districts serving less affluent Latino and Black communities — some of the hardest hit by the pandemic — are further behind. Their leaders spoke of the suffering and fears of their families in the darkest months of the pandemic. School officials, measuring the hardships within their communities, largely did not use waivers to bring back young students.

Their teachers and staff, too, harbor ongoing worries about the trajectory of the virus in the neighborhoods they serve. Although they want to bring students back to school, many said their reopening date was uncertain...

Well, maybe if we change some of the names of schools around the state that will make everything all better? 

Still more, in any case.

 

Margaret MacMillan, War

 Margaret MacMillan, War: How Conflict Shaped Us.

Flashback: Alexis Ren in Aruba (VIDEO)

I do love me some Ms. Alexis!

Remember this one, "Alexis Ren: Beautiful Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Shows Off."

She's brilliant!

Glenn Greenwald on the Left's Obsession with 'Domestic Terrorism' (VIDEO

Following-up, "A Domestic Terrorism Law Is Debated Anew After Capitol Riot."

I'm not a huge fan of Glenn Greenwald's, particularly in light of his shady operations in years past. 

I'll swear though, he's probably the most prescient thinker who gets significant media coverage, if only on Tucker Carlson's show. Whatever the case, he's worth a listen.

Rule 5 Saturday

I haven't posted Rule 5 links in a while.

Check the Other McCain, where "Rule 5" originated back in the day, "Rule 5 Sunday: Hedy Lamarr Presents The Teutonic Titwillow, Lili von Shtupp!"

Also, A View from the Beach, "Rule 5 Saturday - Getting Fit with Jennifer Nicole Lee."

And, at Woodsterman's, "Presidents Weekend ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

Still more, at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See … are climate killing dogs making the seas rise and land turn to sand, you might just be a Warmist."

And on Twitter.

A Domestic Terrorism Law Is Debated Anew After Capitol Riot

It's probably not being debated "anew." 

Democrats are out for the blood of Trump's 74 million supporters, who Democrats are libeling as "right-wing domestic terrorists." And those MAGA folks aren't stupid, despite what the idiot leftists in Congress think. The Biden regime is not getting off to a good start, and the 2022 midterms will be here before they know it, and poof!, bye bye Democrat majority in both chambers. Then who's going to be labeled "domestic terrorists"? The Republicans, as sad a lot as they are, certainly know how to play tit-for-tat. 

So buckle your seat belts as our partisan divisions get worse over these next few years, and China Joe's pledges for "national unity" go up in smoke like a BLM Molotov cocktail.

At WSJ, "Addressing violent extremism is a Biden priority, but whether the U.S. needs a specific new law is up for debate":

As a candidate, President Biden promised to make tackling domestic violent extremism—a long-simmering issue in the U.S.—a priority.

The threat has taken on fresh urgency after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which involved several far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

The matter is fraught: Addressing terrorism involving U.S. citizens is complicated by constitutional, political and cultural concerns, homeland-security officials and other experts say.

One long-debated issue is whether the U.S. needs a generic federal domestic terrorism offense with which to charge violent extremists. Mr. Biden’s campaign website said he would make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism “that respects free speech and civil liberties,” though it is unclear if that would entail creating a broad statute. The Biden administration has yet to make any recommendations and is considering civil-rights concerns, a senior administration official said earlier in February.

What is the argument for a domestic terrorism law?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation can robustly monitor international terrorists with the goal of disrupting plots before they occur. But there are legal constraints on what the bureau can do at home.

Its ability to open an investigation solely based on hateful speech or affiliation with known domestic extremists is severely curtailed by the First Amendment and other constitutional provisions, which protect Americans’ rights to speak, organize in groups and even stockpile firearms. The law-enforcement response to domestic terrorism has been largely reactive—investigating and helping prosecute attacks after they occur.

“Domestic terrorism within law enforcement has historically not been given the importance” of its foreign counterpart, said Tom O’Connor, a former FBI special agent who worked on domestic terrorism cases for 23 years.

By law, U.S. officials have limited ability to monitor communications between people on American soil who may be intent on violence, lacking the sweeping surveillance powers against U.S. citizens that they can use overseas.

The U.S. also has no federal terrorism laws “that apply to the most common method of committing a terrorist attack—a mass shooting—where there is no tie to a foreign terrorist organization,” Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor, has said.

In recent years, most ideologically motivated killings in the U.S. have been tied to far-right extremists such as white supremacists, according to researchers, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Some federal prosecutors, FBI officials and experts tracking American extremism have called for a new law for years, particularly after a string of deadly attacks committed by white supremacists. For example, the man responsible for killing 11 people in 2018’s Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh was hit with 44 charges, including federal hate crimes, but faced no terrorism offenses.

“Enacting a federal crime of domestic terrorism would place it on the same moral plane as international terrorism,” Ms. McCord and Jason Blazakis, a professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, argued in a 2019 article in Lawfare.

Mr. Blazakis said in a Feb. 11 interview that a statute could result in additional jail time for violent offenders, though such a law would require government oversight to ensure that U.S. authorities don’t infringe on civil rights.

The FBI Agents Association has said it supports creating a law...

Still more.

 

The Lovely Ms. Paige

On Twitter:

Sylmar Earthquake of 1971 Still Rattles

I was 9-years-old when the Sylmar earthquake woke up Southern California Feb. 9, 1971 --- and I still remember it clearly. Even in Orange County it caused structural damage. Our house in the City of Orange had some cracks in the walls afterwards. And on that same day, my fourth grade class had a field trip planned to Los Angeles (I think to the tar pits, but I can't remember.) All the kids lining up before classes at 8:00am were chattering on about how their families also felt it. And while there've been stronger earthquakes in California since then (Lomo Prieta in 1989 and the Northridge quake in 1994), apparently it's the Sylmar quake that still resonates the strongest in the geological scientific community.

Also interesting, at the L.A. Times piece below, is that apparently back in the 1970s, the state actually had some good and farsighted leadership who passed legislation that did some good things to protect the state's residents from future temblors. (Must've not been so many Dems in Sacramento back then, for one thing.)

In any case, this is fascinating, "50 years ago, the Sylmar earthquake shook L.A., and nothing’s been the same since":

How close Los Angeles came to what would have been — many times over— the deadliest disaster in U.S. history remains a matter of historical conjecture.

When the Sylmar earthquake rumbled through Los Angeles 50 years ago, on Feb. 9, 1971, the top of the earthen Lower Van Norman Dam melted into the reservoir. No one knows exactly what kept the dam near Granada Hills from collapsing. Was it the number of feet of earthen wall that remained? Was it the duration of the quake, since a few more seconds might have shaken loose the rest of the dam face, unleashing a torrent on tens of thousands of homes below?

That the dam survived has rendered those questions a subject for scientific inquiry rather than the annals of catastrophe.

But what might have been remains part of the mystique that sustains the Sylmar earthquake — formally, the San Fernando earthquake — as the keystone in the long arc of seismic knowledge and the practice of earthquake safety. The quake might not have been the Big One, but it still managed to wake California up to a danger that was largely unrecognized. The modern era of earthquake awareness and preparedness is deeply rooted in Sylmar.

Before then, earthquakes were either removed in time — 1906 in San Francisco, 1933 in Long Beach — or physically distant —1964 in Anchorage.

The 6.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the northeast San Fernando Valley seconds after 6 a.m. not only woke up the city but fixated the nation’s budding seismic community as none had before.

“Los Angeles was the city of the future,” said geophysicist Susan Hough of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Sciences Center. “You had the space-age LAX. You have this modern glistening city and all of a sudden hospitals are being knocked down. It really got people’s attention in many ways.”

The indelible images of Sylmar were the hospitals.

At the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sylmar, two buildings dating to the 1920s collapsed and several others were severely damaged, causing 49 of the 64 deaths attributed to the disaster.

Less costly in lives, yet more startling to engineers and scientists, was the partial collapse of the 4-month-old Olive View Medical Center. Elevator towers tumbled, and the second floor of the 50-bed psychiatric unit collapsed onto the first. Three died there.

No less shocking was the collapse of the soaring, nearly completed overpass from the new Antelope Valley Freeway (Highway 14) to the Golden State Freeway (Interstate 5) in Newhall Pass and portions of the Foothill Freeway (I-210) interchange, where two men in a pickup were killed.

“There were some structures that people thought were safe that turned out not to be,” Hough said.

The hospital buildings and the freeways, all made of concrete, proved unable to roll with the earthquake’s punches.

“We as an engineering community learned from that, that just having strength was not enough,” said Jonathan Stewart, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA. “You had to have ductility” — the ability to stretch. “The [building] code would essentially produce nonductile concrete buildings.”

Another revelation was the damage to single-family homes, at the time thought to be resilient enough to ride out moderate quakes. They proved helpless when the fault rupture reached the surface, a phenomenon that had not previously occurred in an urban earthquake.

“It would go through people’s lawns, it would go through homes,” said Tim Dawson, engineering geologist with the California Geological Survey. “It would torque the buildings. That was the recognition of that earthquake, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t be building on top of faults that can rupture the surface.’”

For the seismic community, the near debacle of the Lower Van Norman Dam, causing no loss of life but forcing the evacuation of 80,000 people, was the most frightening lesson.

“This was a big one because people started to realize you could have killed 100,000 people if that dam had cut loose,” said acting state geologist Steve Bohlen.

Luck may have played a part. The water level had been lowered 10 feet in 1967 after an evaluation had raised doubt about its stability.

“It was very close,” Bohlen said. “Had the shaking gone on for maybe another five seconds or 10, it could have been horrific. It galvanized both the state and the federal government.”

Still more at that top link, including photos and video.

 

Katie Pavlich Hammers Biden Administration's 'Job Killing' Minimum Wage Plan (VIDEO)

Well, it's not just the minimum wage, of course. 

Practically every "executive order" the new president has signed is designed to destroy some group that voted for Trump in November. Jobs? Schmobs? The Democrats don't give a crap about creating jobs. They care about the hardline leftist agenda being pushed out by the weak and feeble new president's freakin' job-destroy anti-capitalist handlers. 

Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban Ordered Team to Stop Playing National Anthem and No One Noticed (VIDEO)

Of course no one noticed. 

The NBA's a black league and besides the NFL loser Colin Kaepernick, the NBA's been the biggest bastion of BLM-style cheerleading. And the MSM? You think this might have been news before the season's 13th game? Nah. MSM types hate the patriotic anthem just as much as Antifa and Black Lives Matter terrorists.

At Bro Bible, "Mark Cuban Ordered the Mavs to Stop Playing the National Anthem This Season and No One Noticed Until After the Team’s 13th Home Game."

Naturally, this Sky News video (from Australia!) was the only one that came up on a YouTube search, probably not because YouTube's censoring any outlets --- there just are no American outlets that are interested in reporting the story. For shame. 

Lead House Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin (VIDEO)

I didn't watch a single minute of yesterday's "snap impeachment" insanity. I do know that CNN made a big day of it, as I just checked the channel guide on my Samsung TV, which showed CNN scheduling hours-long segments blocked out for the "presidential impeachment." It's all such bull. 

But I don't begrudge Rep. Jamie Raskin, who just the week before the Capitol riot lost his 25-year-old son, Tommy, who succumbed to depression and took his own life. And apparently, Rep. Raskin previously taught constitutional law before becoming a Member of Congress. And the verdict is in that his opening statement was a barn-burner.

All that aside, like I said, this whole impeachment thing, the second time Trump has been impeached by hate-addled Democrats who've spent four years fomenting and CONDONING the very kind of "incitement" the former president is now being charged with, is a sham; and American's aren't all that enthusiastic about it, according to Gallup, where the poll shows the Trump overall job approval record isn't that bad, with respondents saying "the country made progress in two important areas over the four years he served as president. More also see progress than regression in another five areas."

And you gotta remember, Gallup and every other polling organization underrepresents conservatives and Republicans in their polling, so the public's view on his performance is probably even better than what's reported. But it is what it is. Democrats in the press and polling world can never do wrong, while conservatives are always the "bad ones," clinging to their "guns and religion," or whatever. 

Here's the video of Rep. Raskin:

How San Francisco Renamed Its Schools

Well, I meant to blog this story a couple of weeks ago, but no matter, because it just keeps getting worse.

Check out this interview with Gabriela López, of the San Francisco Board of Education, who's been in charge of the board's decision-making for the local school name changes (the "cancelling) at schools named after President Lincoln and Senator Feinstein, among others. *SMH.*

Here.

Dying of Covid at L.A.'s Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital

The MLK hospital in Los Angeles was featured in an astonishing set of articles at the Los Angeles Times way back in 2004. I've never forgotten these stories. In fact, one thing I've never forgotten is that I hoped to God I never ended up getting treated there. 

I know this might sound "racist," but MLK-LA at the time was an "all-black"-run health care facility. I don't know, but are black medical professionals less proficient than health professionals of other races or ethnicities? Of course, asking these kind of questions is verboten in the current climate, but I'm just a lowly blogger, so who cares?

In any case, I'm coming back to MLK-LA in light of the New York Times' report out yesterday, "Dying of Covid in a ‘Separate and Unequal’ L.A. Hospital." (And especially notice how it's the status of "separate and unequal" that's apparently the main explanation for why so many people die there. I don't know, maybe it's not just those "systemic" factors that have left the hospital in the lower tier of hospitals in Los Angeles? Just spit-balling, but it's always worth using your critical thinking skills when addressing such topics.)

At NYT:

Inside an overwhelmed facility in the worst-hit part of California, where the patriarchs of two immigrant families were taken when they fell sick.

LOS ANGELES — Over the New Year’s holiday, the grown children of two immigrant families called 911 to report that their fathers were having difficulty breathing. The men, born in Mexico and living three miles from each other in the United States, both had diabetes and high blood pressure. They both worked low-wage, essential jobs — one a minibus driver, the other a cook. And they both hadn’t realized how sick they were.

Three weeks later, the men — Emilio Virgen, 63, and Gabriel Flores, 50 — both died from Covid-19. Their stories were hauntingly familiar at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, by size the hardest-hit hospital in the hardest-hit county in the state now leading the nation in cases and on the brink of surpassing New York with the highest death toll. In the intensive care unit on Jan. 21, Mr. Virgen became No. 207 on the hospital’s list of Covid-19 fatalities; Mr. Flores, just down the hall, became No. 208.

The New York Times spent more than a week inside the hospital, during a period when nearly a quarter of all Covid inpatients there were dying, despite advances in knowledge of the disease. It was an outcome that approached that of some New York hospitals last spring, when the city was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. That rise coincided with a surge of cases in Southern California, a doubling of the mortality rate in Los Angeles hospitals over all and the spread of a new local strain that may be more transmissible than the more prevalent one.

Eight out of ten of those who died at M.L.K. hospital were Hispanic, a group with the highest Covid-19 death rates in Los Angeles County, followed by Black residents. County data also showed that the most impoverished Los Angeles residents, many of them around the hospital in South Los Angeles, are dying of the disease at four times the rate of the wealthiest.

Michelle Goldson, an I.C.U. nurse who cared for both Mr. Virgen and Mr. Flores, said many patients had a “distrust of the health care system, distrust of doctors” and came in only when desperately ill. Severe cases, she said, weren’t limited to older people. “Everybody’s dying here,” she said. As she headed home one recent evening, she waved at a 27-year-old patient who was sitting up eating dinner. When she returned the next morning, he was dead. “What kind of virus is this?” she asked.

Right now, it is one that is merciless in dense, low-income neighborhoods like those where Mr. Virgen and Mr. Flores lived. Relatives similarly described them as hardworking and upbeat, determined to provide for their families. Mr. Virgen raised four children who all went to college, and stubbornly nurtured scrawny mango and lemon trees. Mr. Flores was proud that his oldest son, a Dreamer who had been slipped into the country as a toddler, had graduated from the Los Angeles police academy.

For M.L.K.’s chief executive, Dr. Elaine Batchlor, the inequities in disease and death from Covid reflect those long present in the community. Patients come from what she termed a “medical desert,” with chronic shortages of primary care doctors and other health services.

In the best of times, her small institution cannot match what many other hospitals offer, from caring for preemies to major heart attack victims. Now, amid the pandemic, the hospital can’t test experimental therapies, can’t draw on a large pool of specialized staff in a surge and can’t offer last-chance care on an external lung machine.

During the peak, M.L.K. treated more Covid patients than some Los Angeles hospitals three to four times its size. While Dr. Batchlor emphasizes that her institution has learned to be nimble, she also says it has been overwhelmed. She has pleaded with the governor for help, tried to shame other institutions into accepting transfers of patients and spoken out about the failings of American health care.

“We’ve created a separate and unequal hospital system and a separate and unequal funding system for low-income communities,” she said in an interview. “And now with Covid, we’re seeing the disproportionate impact.”

Keep reading.

Whatever the cause of all this medical heartbreak, it's definitely hitting hardest those "marginalized" communities leftists are always blathering about.

What Jeff Bezos Hath Wrought

It's Moe Tkacik, who I once had a long Twitter convo with, back in the day. She's actually kinda hot, although maybe those old MySpace photos still swirling around online might not be that flattering.

In any case, kudos for her for scoring an opinion piece at NYT, as that leftist craphole is no doubt right up her ideological alley. That said, she did once say that she "sometimes pays attention to [Robert Stacy McCain] because he's so radical." 

In any case, see, "The Amazon founder prepares to step back just as Washington turns up the heat on the mega-retailer and cloud company:

If I had to guess who inspired Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, to kick himself upstairs and appoint Andy Jassy, a deputy, as his successor as chief executive, I might wager that at least part of the blame can be laid on Lucy McBath, the freshman Georgia congresswoman, and her understated grilling of one of the world’s richest men at a July hearing held by the House antitrust subcommittee.

At the hearing, widely regarded as a watershed moment for America’s tech giants, most of the subcommittee members — and all the Democrats — had coalesced around a consensus: The business models of the four biggest tech companies depend on cementing and exploiting their statuses as gatekeepers to the internet, and scheming to bring down anyone who threatens their power to exact ever higher tolls on every minute we spend on the internet.

Only Mr. Bezos, however, had explicitly set out to become a ubiquitous “middleman” of all internet commerce. So most of the lawmakers pushed him to admit that he had systematically bought rivals and lost money selling goods and services below cost solely to destroy the competition, in violation of numerous federal laws that had long gone unenforced — or, as the antitrust scholar Lina Khan has put it, “charted the company’s growth by first drawing a map of antitrust laws, and then devising routes to smoothly bypass them.”

Before the hearing, Ms. McBath had shown little interest in waging class war on billionaire elites. A flight attendant who entered politics after the murder of her teenage son in a crime enabled by Florida’s infamous Stand Your Ground law, she had endorsed Mike Bloomberg in the Democratic presidential primary race. But interviews she and her staff had conducted with small business owners who sold their goods on Amazon’s platform had clearly left her in no mood to suffer fools.

During her questioning, Ms. McBath played an audio recording from a woman later described in a congressional report as a successful textbook seller who said Amazon had cut off her account 10 months earlier. “This business feeds a total of 14 people, which includes three children and one 90-year-old granny,” she said in the recording.

The report said the bookseller’s listings had been kicked off the platform with no explanation. Like virtually all successful Amazon sellers, she purchased fulfillment and storage services from the company because the algorithms would bury her listings if she fulfilled orders herself. But Amazon returned only a small portion of her inventory, continuing instead to charge her for storing it in its warehouses...

Rep. McBath is a radical Democrat who can go get screwed, for all I care. 

But it is what it is, and Moe's seemingly gotten more radical since I interacted with on Twitter a decade ago.

Besides, Amazon's never treated this blog badly, so I'm not going to gripe about a company that not only sends me money once a month, but one that also provides all kind of services that have improved my consumer life (like my own book-buying habit). 

So whatever. Bezos will still be pulling the strings at Amazon no matter who he names as the new "C.E.O."

More at that top link, FWIW.

 

Jeep's Bruce Sprinsteen Super Bowl Ad (VIDEO)

I usually just mute the commercials during the game, but my wife was watching too, and she mainly likes the commercials and the halftime show, heh. 

And I did see some folks on Twitter draggin' on Springsteen as a mediocre musician and uber-leftist clod. Be that as it may, I liked the ad, because, first, I drive a Dodge Challenger and my wife's previous vehicle was a Jeep Liberty SUV; and second, I like the message: It goes without saying that Americans need to focus more on the "middle" of the country, and I guess the ad's trying to convey that we need to seek the "middle" as Americans, and pull away from the freak fringes (on both sides, frankly) that are easily pulling the rest of the country to the brink of ruin.

In any case, you may like this or may not, as is your prerogative. I post you decide lol.

'Greatest of All Tom'

That's the headline for the L.A. Times' Super Bowl coverage this morning. You may not like Tom Brady, and I'm not a particularly big fan, as I think the Patriots under Belichick and Brady were ruthless at winning, and weren't, by any means, beneath cheating to do it.

But Brady broke all previous boundaries (again, really) at Raymond James Stadium last night, with a socially distanced crowd of just 25,000, with 7,500 of those seats reserved (and deserved) for Covid pandemic "front-line workers." 

In any case, at LAT, "Tom Brady wins seventh Super Bowl as Buccaneers crush Chiefs 31-9."

And from Bill Plaschke, "No more doubt about it: Tom Brady is the GOAT of GOATs":

Tom Brady screamed to the sky. He barked into facemasks. He pounded his palms.

Then, when his magnificent moment was clinched midway through the third quarter, he ran off the field with the loudest gesture of all, the silent waving of a single finger that stood for a legacy.

Of seven Super Bowl wins, this was his most enduring.

Of Super Bowl wins spanning three different decades, this was his most eternal.

For the GOAT, this was the greatest.

To Tom Brady, I ultimately bow.

In Tom Brady, I finally believe.

I picked against him, and I’ve never looked more foolish. The majority of bettors picked against his team, and they’ve never appeared more broke.

It wasn’t supposed to happen, it couldn’t happen, it shouldn’t happen, but on a historic night at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, Tom Brady even outdid Tom Brady.

The greatest quarterback ever became the greatest football player ever, and arguably the greatest American team sports athlete ever, as he led his Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a stunning 31-9 rout of the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV...

More.

 

The 'Black Sins' of the New York Times

Following-up, "Donald McNeil Out at the New York Times.

The "black sins" here are those of "Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)" staffers at the Old Gray Lady, who are cancelling anyone, no matter how good or how esteemed in their past work, like Donald McNeil, who as noted, seems like an arrogant bastard, but I read his reporting myself, and dang, he's good.

But he's out now. A victim of the cancerous cancel culture that is destroying American institutions up and down the line, from corporate America, to newsrooms, and especially the public schools. 

Here's John McWhorter, who's a Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University, and an expert on race relations in his own right. He doesn't care if he's called "Uncle Tom," because he's heard it for decades, when referring to the "N-Word" wasn't a big deal, and he brushes it off like a "pussy hat" some idiot progressive trying to make him wear one and turn him pink.

See, "The N-word as slur vs. the N-word as a sequence of sounds: What makes the New York Times so comfortable making black people look dim?":

On what Black History Month and the racial reckoning mean at the New York Times …

Over the past week, the Times’ crossword puzzles have included many clues having to do with black culture and issues, and in fact have been by black constructors. A fine gesture for Black History Month.

But then the other night we learned that longtime reporter Donald McNeil, who has done groundbreaking work on the pandemic, has been fired, at 67. His sin was that on an NYT-sponsored educational trip with teenagers, he used the N-word in referring to it (as opposed to actually using the word).

Inevitably, in response to outcry over how needlessly punitive this is, his inquisitors and defenders will note that he is documented to have said some other things that suggest that he is not completely on board with what a certain educated orthodoxy considers the proper positions on race, and that he was reputed to have treated some staffers in a discriminatory way. However, if the complaints were only these, it is reasonable to suppose that he would still have his job. It was the N-word thing that pushed things over the edge, and is the focus of the letter signed by 150 staffers demanding, in effect, his head on a pole.

That is, for people like this, the N-word has gone from being a slur to having, in its mere shape and sound, a totemic taboo status directly akin to how Harry Potter characters process the name Voldemort and theatre people maintain a pox on saying “Macbeth” inside a theatre. The letter roasts McNeil for “us[ing] language that is offensive and unacceptable,” implying a string of language, a whole point or series thereof, something like a stream, a stretch – “language.” But no: they are referring to his referring to a single word.

The kinds of people who got McNeil fired think of this new obsessive policing of the N-word as a kind of strength. Their idea is “We are offended by this word, we demand that you don’t use it, and if you do use it, we are going to make sure you lose your job.” But the analogy is off here. This would be strength if the issue were the vote, or employment. Here, people are demanding the right to exhibit performative delicacy, and being abetted in it by non-black fellow travellers.

One way we know that this pox on even uttering the N-word to refer to it is that it was not the common consensus quite recently...

More.