Why Elites Like Greta Thunberg Hate Capitalism

And she's so young. What a waste of a great potential.

From Michael Shellenberger, on Substack, "Free markets have lifted millions out of poverty, liberated women, and protected the environment. Why, then, are so many progressives against them?":

For the last three years, Greta Thunberg has said that her life’s purpose was to save the world from climate change. But last Sunday, she told an audience in London that climate activists must overthrow "the whole capitalist system," which she says is responsible for "imperialism, oppression, genocide... racist, oppressive extractionism." Her talk echoed the World Economic Forum's calls for a “Great Reset” away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. There is no “back to normal,” she said.

But her claims are absurd. The "whole capitalist system" has, over the last 200 years, allowed for the average life expectancy of humans to rise from 30 to 70 years of age. The "whole capitalist system" produces larger food surpluses than any other system in human history. And the "whole capitalist system" has resulted in declining greenhouse gas emissions in developed nations over the last 50 years.

Capitalism is far from perfect. It worsens inequality by making some people so rich that they can rocket into space on liquified hydrogen while leaving others too poor to afford natural gas. It is characterized by cycles of boom and bust that create frenzies of wealth followed by high unemployment. And it is constantly turning non-market relationships, including intimate ones, such as between parents and caregivers, into exchanges between buyers and sellers.

But capitalism is plainly better than any other system of economic organization yet devised. High levels of inequality are the result of more rich people, not more poor people, who are much better off under capitalism than feudalism or communism. The business cycle of booms and busts provokes manias and depressions, but it is much more efficient, and less oppressive than governments deciding what should be produced, by whom, and at what price. And while it’s true that capitalism undermines non-market relationships, that’s often a good thing, even in the case of childcare, since it allows women and others to be compensated for their labor.

Some of the people who have benefitted the most from industrial capitalism are people like Thunberg and her family. The remarkable wealth of their home nation of Sweden is due to the industrial revolution, which allows for a tiny number of people to produce food, energy, and other necessities for life so that the majority of Swedes can do other, less arduous, and more pleasurable things. The same is true across the West. In the U.S., just 2% of the population works on farms and just 8% in factories. And industrial capitalism allowed Sweden to create a generous social welfare state consisting of free health care, free education, and 480 days of paid leave for parents when a child is born or adopted. The Thunbergs are, by any global or historical standard, rich: the annual per capita income globally, according to the World Bank, is $11,000, which is less than the cost of the two chairs in Thunberg’s living room.

Capitalism is far better for the natural environment than feudalism or communism. Under feudalism, subsistence farmers rely on wood and dung for cooking fuels and must farm large tracts of land to produce a small amount of food. The industrial revolution not only liberated most people from back-breaking farming but also reduced the amount of land required, thanks to fertilizer, irrigation, and tractors. The same process allowed humans to switch from using wood to coal to natural gas and uranium as primary fuels.

The result has been the return, and “re-wilding,” of grasslands and forests around the world, including in Sweden. The reason is that market capitalism rewards economic efficiency and thus reduced natural resource use. Consider the whales. What saved them, in capitalist nations, was cheaper substitute oils, first petroleum and then vegetable oils. The Soviet Union, by contrast, kept whaling long after it was economically efficient to do so because whalers were protected from market competition.

All of this and yet, around the world, it is affluent and educated progressives like Thunberg who are anti-capitalist...

Halloween Redhead

Very red, on Twitter.

Kari Lake is Amazing! (VIDEO)

On Twitter, folks are suggesting Ms. Lake is a much better public communicator than even Barack Obama. As Melissa Mackenzie writes, "She should be teaching classes to other Republicans. She's that good."

And on Fox News yesterday:

The 12-Foot Home Depot Skeleton

I saw this sucker last night, and remember the Wall Street Journal story about it What a kick, lol.

See, "In Search of a 12-Foot Home Depot Skeleton: A Halloween Shopping Spree Gone Wrong":

Our columnist was determined to join the ‘more is more’ crowd when it came to Halloween yard decor. Only problem: She didn’t start planning six months in advance.

WHILE CYCLING in the suburbs in mid-September, I stopped at a house that demonstrated the most sincere, all-encompassing commitment to Halloween I’d ever seen. Its yard was an entire Halloween cemetery, with a coven of 10-foot-tall animatronic witches gathered around a huge cauldron, casting spells and creating utter, supernatural mayhem. Life-size skeletons—some human, some animal—emerged from their graves in various states of decomposition.

Planning and executing this display had to be the focus of these homeowners’ lives for a good six months. While taking in every undead detail, I thought how fun it might be to embrace a holiday with such creative fulsomeness. As someone with an actual job, I couldn’t. But neither did I want to continue my lousy track record as a party pooper who can’t even be bothered to carve a pumpkin badly for the porch. When it comes to honoring Oct. 31, The Husband and I have traditionally hunkered down inside with a stiff drink and the front lights off, nary a Twix bar in sight. Inspired and shamed by CemeteryPalooza, I vowed to step up our game this year.

But when we finally got around to stepping up our game, it was mid-October, and we were two months too late. The Halloween section at our local Home Depot had already been taken over entirely by Christmas decor, and the store had banished whatever spooky detritus remained to a department that was also being used to store hydraulic lifts and large restocking carts. Accessing the dwindling Halloween stock involved climbing through what was essentially a jungle gym.

All that was left for Halloween were some fall-colored wreaths about to crumble under the weight of accumulated store dust, and some tiny cat, pig and dog skeletons. Trick-or-treaters would be more likely to crush them underfoot than be terrified by them. This year’s coolest stuff, like the must-have 12-foot skeleton with LCD “Life Eyes” ($299), had been out of stock for weeks. (As we had nowhere to store such a thing after Halloween, except by giving it a permanent spot on the couch, this was perhaps for the best.)

Given Home Depot’s abundance of Christmas stuff, we considered refocusing our energies on a new holiday-decor mashup: Hallowmas. Skeleton Santa and eight tiny skeleton reindeer? Zombie elves? A creche filled with severed body parts? We could coast right through Halloween and into Christmas without changing anything. We liked this direction, but worried our neighbors might look askance at such cutting-edge decor thinking.

This left us with a challenge: What could we do with a dusty orange wreath? Halloween has become a decorative arms race, and as The Husband and I had discovered, those who procrastinate are bound to lose. In the not-too-distant past, it was only the hardcore “holiday” people—whose yards serve as a rotating homage to whatever holiday was next, including Arbor Day—who really pushed the Halloween boat out. They crowded their lawns with witch-based frippery, wrapped their porches in more spiderwebs than the Earth’s entire spider population could manufacture, and always had full-size candy bars. Everybody whose decor was limited to inept pumpkins, lit by real candles, rolled their eyes while secretly envying the holiday people’s creativity and candy budget.

Today, it seems, every second neighbor is a hardcore Halloween person with the same “more is more” aesthetic embraced by throwers of extravagant first birthday parties featuring the Rockettes and gender-reveal parties with a flyover by the Blue (or will they be Pink?) Angels. In this new Halloween landscape, bigger is not just better, it is required. And based on that display I cycled past, so are spreadsheets and an entire off-site storage unit devoted to containing the undead.

We weren’t interested in recreating CemeteryPalooza, or, frankly, owning any Halloween decor that requires an outlet. But I also wasn’t prepared to give up the (hopefully discounted) ghost. So last weekend, undeterred by our Home Depot fail, we went to our local Party City, determined to find a few items to show that we were no longer Lame Halloween Ignorers—decorations that could telegraph “We are fun and creative!”

We were shocked to find the place packed with Halloween swag, especially since Home Depot had been picked so clean. Party City had 7.5-foot, light-up spiders ($75), dozens of varieties of tombstones (some that cost as little as $9), animatronic haunted toy boxes ($115 and also, super yikes). Every sort of ghastly decorative string lights you can imagine, and an entire butcher shop worth of severed body parts. It was an embarrassment of both riches and witches, which promptly paralyzed us with indecision. Would we go ‘cute scary’ or full-on ‘Hostel scary’?

Then I backed into the Animatronic 7.5-foot Tall Light-Up Talking Ice Scream Clown ($99)...

 

Marc Morano, The Great Reset

At Amazon, Marc Morano, The Great Reset: Global Elites and the Permanent Lockdown.

The Collapse of Biden's Woketopia

From Sasha Stone, on Subtack, "And the Realignment of a New America":

“I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.” ― George Carlin

Joe Biden and the Democrats have a big problem. It isn’t just that they stand to lose in the midterm elections and maybe the Presidency in 2024. They stand to lose much more than that. They stand to lose everything.

The American people, by now, have had enough. They’re sick of cowards who cannot stand up to the activists who control them. They’re not just sick of them in Washington. They’re sick of them everywhere. They’re sick of being told what they can and can’t say, what they can and can’t think.

In 2020, a New Woke Order exploded on the streets. It looked a lot like the rehearsal at Evergreen and across many college campuses all over the country. It wasn’t all of the Zoomers leading the charge, but the activists have been loud and powerful. They have captured corporate America and nearly every cultural institution in the country. And they’ve captured Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Their activism, however well-intentioned, has all but wrecked Hollywood movies; almost every network or streaming series is infused with their doctrine. It is inescapable. It’s in public schools, museums, fast food advertising, library reading lists, and sports. Most of us are developing an immunity to anything we think might be “woke,” and we will avoid it as much as possible.

Most of us know that if there is some message buried in a book or a movie, we’re going to resent being drawn in for yet another lecture on how to be better, how to do better, and how to reorder our thinking to satisfy their unending critiques. It’s so bad that someone should start a website called “Is it Woke”? That would save consumers a lot of time and trouble.

The only reason we don’t hear about it more is that any dissent is viciously attacked until an apology is squeezed out like the last bit of toothpaste in an empty tube. It is too much trouble to endure all of that panic and hysteria. So most people keep their heads down and hope it will pass.

Joe Biden doesn’t yet understand this. Most Democrats don’t. Not even the new stars in the party like Gavin Newsome or Pete Buttigieg. Not even Beto. They falsely believe that is what they must do to win Twitter and win points on the Left. The exact opposite is true. Although one must develop “rhino skin,” like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, the future will be with those who push back loudly against this ongoing madness.

In the past, we might have had some reality checks with people like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, or SNL. But no. They’ve been sucked into the Body Snatchers, too, and their comedy isn’t comedy at all. They work for the Democrats, just like much of the media. It feels like being stuck inside a Twilight Zone episode where everyone is pretending like what is happening isn’t happening.

There are many reasons the Democrats might lose in a massive red wave on Tuesday. One of those is the pendulum shift we see throughout American history that bobs back and forth between liberalism and conservatism. But I would bet that many of these voters might not even want Republicans in power and disagree with their policies.

Still, they see in the MAGA candidates something they don’t see anywhere else: unapologetic resistance to the “woke” utopia that has been foisted upon us all.

This is why Kari Lake is burning up the polls. This is why Glenn Youngkin won and why Ron DeSantis is so popular. And it’s why Trump will likely breeze through to a win in 2024. Sure, they are also offering ways to rescue America from a collapsing economy, but what people fear the most is what they aren’t allowed to talk about.

The Democrats and their robot army on Twitter or in the mainstream media seem to think that continuing to demonize the other side will work to scare voters away from them. But to many people, that’s like trying to tell them not to get in the lifeboats as the Titanic sank, explaining that the people driving the boats protested the last election.

But let’s get specific about what we mean by “woke.” It doesn’t mean inclusion. It doesn’t even mean equity. It means that the answers to humanity’s problems have finally been solved. All you have to do is measure a person’s worth by status as a marginalized person. Meet the new utopia. Same as the old utopia.

They believe that America, and other Western nations, have been built as colonizing systems of oppression specifically to keep Black and Brown people down. They have an adjunct category now for whites. They can have protective status if they’re part of the LGBTQIA community. If they are disabled, if they have some mental disorder, or even if they are old. These things elevate those deemed oppressed, left out and shut out of the American way of life, which theoretically rewards high achievement.

Joe Biden and John Fetterman are cis-gendered heterosexual white men who would usually be on the list of oppressors. Still, both have miraculously transcended their identity to become part of a marginalized group. Fetterman is considered disabled, and Biden is incapacitated due to age.

There is nothing more the Left loves than incapacitated white men. If they can wrap their fingers around a pen, they can tell them where to sign. Disability is only a protected class if you are also ideologically compliant. Elon Musk has Asperger’s but do you think that wins him any points with the Woketopians?

If you don’t have protective status, you are on the other side, the “bad” side. You are someone with privilege. White privilege, pretty privilege, thin privilege, youth privilege, straight privilege, and able-bodied privilege.

Here is a sampling of different kinds of privilege from North Shore Community College...

RTWT.

 

'We Are Moving Backwards' -- A New 'Underground Railroad' in U.S. Amid Draconian Abortion Laws

 At Der Spiegel, "In the United States, abortion is no longer a basic right. The recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has allowed states to criminalize the act. But the battle for women's right to self-determination continues – on the streets and underground."

Democrats Promote Tough-on-Crime Credentials as Party Plays Defense

Shot: At the New York Times, "With sheriffs vouching for them and a flood of ads proclaiming their support for the police, Democrats are shoring up their public safety bona fides. Still, some worry it’s too late":

In the final stretch of the midterm campaigns, Democrats are straining to defend themselves against a barrage of crime-focused attacks from Republicans, forcefully highlighting their public safety credentials amid signs that G.O.P. messaging on the issue may be more potent than usual in some critical races this year.

Democrats have enlisted sheriffs to vouch for them, have outspent Republicans on ads that use the word “police” in the month of October, and have been using the kind of tough-on-crime language that many on the left seemed to reject not long ago — even as some Democrats worry that efforts to inoculate the party on a complex and emotional issue are falling short.

Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, who is being criticized over a 2018 video in which he called ending cash bail a “top priority,” aired an ad in which an officer declared him a “tough-on-crime” lawmaker who confronted those “who wanted to defund the police.”

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada has long highlighted her pro-law enforcement credentials, including with an ad featuring a police chief praising her record of being “tough on crime.”

And Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, whose history on criminal justice issues is being denounced by Republicans, sounded pro-law enforcement notes at a senior center on Friday as he discussed his tenure as the mayor of Braddock, Pa., saying he “was proud to work with our police departments, and funding the police.”

Nationwide, Democrats spent more money last month on ads that used the word “police” than Republicans did, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. But heavy Republican spending on crime ads earlier this year has helped define the final weeks of the campaign in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

National crime trends are mixed and complex, and Republicans have often reached for arguments about crime or border security, with varying results. Some party strategists doubt the issue will be decisive this year, with many Americans far more focused on economic matters.

But a Gallup survey released late last month found that “Americans are more likely now than at any time over the past five decades to say there is more crime in their local area than there was a year ago.”

The issue, fanned and sometimes distorted by conservative news outlets, has been especially pronounced in liberal-leaning states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Wisconsin, where big cities have struggled with concerns about violence and quality of life over the last few years. But the topic is at play in many tight Senate, House and governors’ races...

Chaser: "Most Candidates Running on Crime Don’t Have Much Power to Solve It :Your congressman doesn’t control the police budget. Your senator probably doesn’t know where the worst hot spots are."

Tuesday's going to be blast!

Election Deniers: Some Democrats Believe the Polls are All Lies and Part of a Conspiracy Theory to Make Abortion Appear Less Popular Than It Is

At AoSHQ, "Optimistic Democrats insist the polls are wrong, says The Hill."

BONUS: "#TheSnap: Half of Twitter's " " " Workers " " " Are Unemployed, Starting Now (9 am Pacific Time)."

The Democrats’ Insurrection Flop

It's Julie Kelly, at American Greatness, "Turns out, the “Big Lie” is that January 6 ever mattered to anyone outside the Beltway."

Big-Rig Flips, Lands on Car on 405 Freeway In Seal Beach Friday

Yes, and I was caught in the traffic. 

I drove up for a book club pizza meetup in Long Beach at Noon. When I got on the freeway going home to Irvine it soon backed up around Lakewood Boulevard, and it was dead traffic for miles. A parking lot. The maps app on my phone showed the 405 in red and was trying to get me to take alternative routes, but the alternatives were so out of the way it was ridiculous. I just rode it out. Took me two hours to get home, in what is normally a 30 minute drive in the early afternoons.

See, "A driver suffered minor injuries while two others escaped injury when a car and big-rig truck collided on the 405 Freeway in Seal Beach."

Such is life. 

In California, Republicans Hope to Flip These Biden-Leaning Districts

It's going to be extremely embarrassing iIf some of the districts flip to the G.O.P. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "These California districts voted big for Biden, but Republicans are optimistic about their chances":

As the sun set behind rows of modest homes, Republican Matt Jacobs knocked on doors urging voters in Oxnard to ditch their incumbent Democratic congresswoman and pick him to improve their quality of life.

“I care deeply about this community,” Jacobs told Jacqueline Mercado, 28, adding that he was born and raised in Ventura County, a message he repeated in English and fluent Spanish in this predominantly Latino neighborhood. “I just think things can be better all around.”

With her 1-year-old daughter crawling nearby, Mercado, a Democrat, nodded vigorously when Jacobs asked if the cost of groceries was affecting her family. “Absolutely,” Mercado said, before telling him that she would vote for him in Tuesday’s election.

“I just want someone to make everything better,” said Mercado, an employee of the state’s toll-free 211 system that connects Californians with job training, after-school programs and other services. “Make things better, like inflation. That really matters, because gas is crazy right now. Food. Everything.”

Such pocketbook concerns are among the reasons Republicans say they feel good about their odds in blue regions like California’s 26th Congressional District, which Joe Biden won by 20 points.

The GOP is favored to take control of the House in Tuesday’s election, and voters like Mercado could make that happen or determine the size of its majority.

The midterms have been defined by Republicans arguing that Democrats are poor stewards of the economy and their policies have fomented rising crime and Democrats warning that Republicans are too extreme when it comes to abortion rights, threats to democracy and potential cuts to Social Security.

The 26th, largely based in Ventura County with a sliver of Los Angeles County, is probably a reach for Republicans. But the prospect of it being in play suggests vulnerability for Democrats in a number of districts in California and across the country that Biden won by double digits.

“If California Democrats have a headache in California 26, they’ve got the flu in a whole range of more competitive seats,” including contests in the Central Valley and Southern California, said David Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Democrat Julia Brownley has represented much of Ventura County in Congress since 2013. On Tuesday, the district was moved from “solid Democrat” to “lean Democrat” by Cook, which based its prognostication on a poll that showed a statistical dead heat between the candidates and the amount of money flowing in. The Cook Report also forecast tightening contests in districts represented by Democrats Katie Porter of Irvine and Josh Harder of Turlock. Many of these districts, in historically conservative bastions such as Porter’s in Orange County, are now closely split between Democratic and Republican voters, or are places where Democrats wield a numeric edge but have a Republican incumbent, such as Reps. Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita and David Valadao of Hanford.

The 26th District, however, doesn’t fit into either of these categories. The incumbent is a Democrat, and though the district gained conservative Simi Valley in the 2021 redrawing of congressional maps, Democrats still have a nearly 15-percentage-point voter registration edge.

Wasserman was among the prognosticators who was skeptical when Brownley’s prospects were initially questioned.

“But clearly the environment has deteriorated for Democrats since then,” he said. “Though she’s still a clear favorite, she is not in as solid shape because Republicans have a credible candidate and there is still some ancestral Republican support in Ventura County.”

Inflation, gas prices, concerns about crime and the lack of exciting statewide campaigns are a boon for Republicans, said Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta.

“All of this is a toxic brew,” he said, adding that voters in districts like Brownley’s may be liberal on social issues but malleable on economic matters. “And we are in a pocketbook election.”

GOP politicians represented the area in Congress for 70 years, until Brownley won her seat in 2012. One out of five of the district’s voters decline to identify with a political party.

More than 20 House campaign committees and leadership PACs contributed to Brownley and Jacobs over a three-day span in late October, making it “the top House target for Republicans and Democrats alike” for such efforts, according to the research director for the California Target Book, a nonpartisan guide that analyzes races in the state. A pro-Brownley outside group recently chipped in a half-million dollars.

GOP redistricting expert Matt Rexroad said that these moves, as well as President Biden’s appearance with Rep. Mike Levin in Oceanside on Thursday, indicate that several districts in California are competitive...

 

Twitter Turmoil Poses Risks to the Company’s Brand

At the Wall Street Journal, "The social-media company is under a spotlight in the early days of Elon Musk’s ownership":

Twitter Inc.’s reputation among consumers and advertisers is at risk from the tumult unfolding under new owner Elon Musk, some branding executives and other observers say, even as some Twitter users think the change in leadership could improve the platform.

Mr. Musk, who closed his acquisition of the social-media company on Oct. 27, fired Twitter’s top executives, laid off about half its staff and floated several ideas for changes to the way the platform works. Some advertisers have paused their advertising on Twitter, largely either out of concern that Mr. Musk might weaken content moderation, potentially leading to more hate speech on the platform, or because of the uncertainty surrounding the company’s direction.

“This uncertainty and instability, entirely of Musk’s making, will quickly damage Twitter’s brand and unsettle users,” said Darren Savage, chief strategy officer of Omnicom Group Inc. -owned digital marketing agency Tribal Worldwide London.

But the new era at Twitter could also be an opportunity for the company to redefine its brand for the better.

Sixty-four percent of Twitter users said Mr. Musk will have a positive impact on the product, according to a survey of 1,212 adults who use the platform by polling firm Harris Insights & Analytics between Oct. 28 and 30.

The platform also has gotten an incredible amount of publicity since Mr. Musk’s takeover, said Tim Calkins, marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “And in many ways, that’s great news for Twitter, because now people are thinking about Twitter for the first time in a very long time,” he said.

But it remains unclear what Twitter under Mr. Musk will actually be, Mr. Calkins said.

Twitter didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Musk has indicated that he wants Twitter to be less restrictive about what users can share, and in his first weekend as owner posted a link to a conspiracy theory about the assault on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He later deleted the tweet, and more broadly has said he would form a special council to tackle questions of content moderation.

Twitter will likely have to prove it can keep advertisers “safe” from appearing near content they might find concerning, while assuring those advertisers that they aren’t helping to fund a platform that allows racist or hateful content to flourish, ad executives said.

“Advertisers are thinking about how their dollars spent on the platform could be perceived as their direct support of Elon’s personal views,” said Toni Box, senior vice president of social media at media agency Assembly, part of ad holding company Stagwell Inc. “And Musk’s own personal tweets are being questioned in regard to brand safety and adjacency, so this could be very damaging if it’s not addressed quickly.”

Howard Belk, co-CEO of Omnicom Group brand consultancy Siegel + Gale, said the events at Twitter are likely changing the way people view it. “Recent turmoil at the company has had the effect of objectifying Twitter, raising the question with users and advertisers of whether Twitter is a safe media channel to desired consumers, or merely a plaything for Musk and a misinformation tool for bad actors domestically and around the world,” he said.

Twitter will now need to work to communicate with users in an attempt to mollify them, or risk potentially losing them, Mr. Belk added.

Twitter before Mr. Musk weathered a number of controversies that rattled some advertisers and users.

The number of Twitter’s monetizable average daily active users increased to 237.8 million in the second quarter this year from 229 million in the first quarter and 206 million a year earlier.

The company’s marketing team over the years developed advertising campaigns that positioned Twitter as a place for people who wanted to quickly know what was happening in the world and bring their most authentic selves to the internet. Ads aimed to boost the platform’s active user base by mimicking or reproducing the often-irreverent copywriting displayed by users on the platform. It ran a commercial during the Oscars in 2018.

But news coverage and Mr. Musk’s tweets could continue playing a big role in perceptions of Twitter because the company’s ad spending is relatively modest, and recently declining.

The company spent $1.4 million to advertise itself in the U.S. from January through August of this year, down from $2.2 million in the equivalent period a year earlier, according to estimates by research firm Kantar Media. Those figures include media such as TV, radio, outdoor ads, magazines and the internet, but exclude social media.

By comparison, advertising to promote the hot social-media platform TikTok in the U.S. from January through August totaled $51.6 million, up from $32.7 million in the same months of 2021.

“The brand drives strong engagement and relevance with their core users and has achieved significant presence in culture,” said Andrew Miller, an executive strategy director at Interbrand, a brand consultancy owned by Omnicom that annually ranks companies’ brand values.

But this is a potential inflection point for Twitter, Mr. Miller said. “When brands go through business change, either being acquired, merging, or going private in this case, one of the most important near-term objectives is to assuage the concerns of the user and customer base to minimize attrition through the transition.”

Twitter’s brand would benefit if its new owner took a step back from micromanaging day-to-day operations and avoided unhelpful tweets, including a new one Friday about a “massive drop in revenue” from advertiser cutbacks, said Aaron Kwittken, founder and chairman of Stagwell public-relations firm KWT Global...

 

Maitland Ward, How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood

At Amazon, Maitland Ward, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood.

Nouriel Roubini, MegaThreats

At Amazon, Nouriel Roubini, MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them.

WATCH: 'All Quiet on the Western Front' Official Trailer

It's a long movie, but worth your while. Now streaming at Netflix.

Star Economist Nouriel Roubini on the Global Crises

At Der Spiegel, "'World War III Has Already Effectively Begun'."

Leather Laptop Messenger Bag Vintage Briefcase Satchel

A beautiful item, and deal of the day. 

Here, Leather Laptop Messenger Bag Vintage Briefcase Satchel for Men and Women (VINTAGE BROWN) 18 inch.

Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water

At Amazon, Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy.

Fucking Idiot Tom Brady Announces Divorce from Smokin' Supermodel Gisele Bundchen

The man's a blazing idiot. Should've stayed retired. Now look at him, a laughingstock, with a 3-5 record in the NFC South. 

Brady announced the formal split on Instagram.

Ms. Gisele's announcement is here. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "It’s officially over: Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen confirm they’ve finalized divorce."

And at the New York Times, "Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen Say They Have Divorced":

Since they met, Brady, a star quarterback, and Bündchen, a supermodel, have been a high-profile couple, constantly under the public eye. By the time they had met, Brady had already won three Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and Bündchen was one of the most famous people in the world, a fixture on magazine covers and one of the top figures in the fashion industry. In 2016, she was reportedly the world’s highest paid (and richest) model.

In the time that they were together, Brady went on to win four more championships, including one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with Bündchen often seen supporting him at games and during trophy celebrations...

Most men would practically die to have a woman like Gisele. Their divorce reminds of the that other fucking idiot Ben Affeck, who completely botched it by losing Jennifer Garner, one of the most beautiful women in the world.

I can't with these two. (Rolls eyes.)

 

FLAMING SKULL: 'Florida *Democrat* Election Official Blows Whistle of Longstanding ILLEGAL Practice of 'Ballot Harvesting' by Paying Mostly African-American Residents $10 Per Ballot'

 At AoSHQ, "'WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS "MISINFORMATION" ACCORDING TO THE TREASONOUS CRIMINAL GANGS CALLED THE DOJ AND FBI, DEFINED AS "TRUE FACTS WHICH CONTRADICT THE LIES OF THE REGIME'."

Amira

On Twitter.

Signs of a Red Wave

A good piece, from Erick Erickson, "Forget the Polls. Here Are the Signs of the Red Wave."

Forty-Five Percent of Americans Say They Want a 'Christian Nation'

Hmm.

At Pew Research, "45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a ‘Christian Nation’."

But they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should keep out of politics.

The implication is that Americans want "Christian Nationalism," which is a left-wing boogeyman. 

 

Pendleton Men's The Original Zip Up Cardigan Sweater

Here, Pendleton Men's The Original Westerley Zip Up Cardigan Sweater.

BONUS: Pendleton Men's Shetland Crew Neck Sweater, and Pendleton Men's Long Sleeve Snap Front Classic-Fit Frontier Shirt.

Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 300, 293Wh Backup Lithium Battery

Prepping for the apocalypse.

See, Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 300, 293Wh Backup Lithium Battery, 110V/300W Pure Sine Wave AC Outlet, Solar Generator (Solar Panel Not Included) for Outdoors Camping Travel Hunting Blackout.

BONUS: DuroMax XP13000EH Dual Fuel Portable Generator 13000 Watt Gas or Propane Powered Electric Start-Home Back Up, Blue/Gray.

Kaitlyn Dever Has Toned Legs (And a Peek of Abs) In See-Through Top and Miniskirt In 'Late Show' Pics

At Women's Health, "Cruuuushing it."

Three New Yorkers Ordered Cocaine From the Same Delivery Service. All Died From Fentanyl.

I don't do this stuff. I didn't even know coke was popular these days. And you can order it from a delivery service? Hmm.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Cocaine, long popular among New York professionals, is now often tainted with fentanyl, catching users unprepared and driving drug fatalities":

NEW YORK—Ross Mtangi, a trading executive at Credit Suisse Group AG, left his Manhattan penthouse in March 2021 with his laptop and told his pregnant partner he was going to work.

He checked into a nearby hotel and tuned in to work calls. Later, he texted for cocaine from a drug delivery service. A man wearing a baseball cap, cross-body bag and face mask appeared on hotel surveillance.

Mr. Mtangi, 40 years old, missed a follow up meeting. His sister and her partner found him dead at the hotel the next day. Police found on a table translucent black baggies that contained lethal fentanyl mixed in with the cocaine.

In the East Village, first-year lawyer Julia Ghahramani, 26, texted the same delivery service the same day. She also died. She had just started her career remotely at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Social worker Amanda Scher, 38, did the same. She died in the Greenwich Village apartment she shared with her Chihuahua-Corgi rescue dog. It was a stone’s throw from where she had received her master’s degree at New York University.

The three high-achieving New Yorkers had texted the DoorDash-style cocaine delivery service on a late winter Wednesday. They all died from the illicit fentanyl that had been mixed into it.

Fentanyl is a powerful legal opioid, prescribed for cancer patients and others with severe pain. Traffickers have found it is easy and inexpensive to make. The illicit form has spread throughout the illegal drug market, turning up in heroin as well as pills stamped out to look like oxycodone or Adderall and other drugs.

Dealers also cut it into cocaine, a stimulant, to be more potent and addictive, introducing the drug to unsuspecting buyers. A tiny amount of fentanyl can kill unseasoned users.

“Hey try not to do too much because it’s really strong,” read a text sent to Ms. Scher later that night from the delivery number. Ms. Ghahramani missed seven calls from the number.

Sassan Ghahramani, Ms. Ghahramani’s father, said the fentanyl in his daughter’s cocaine was like having cyanide appear in an alcoholic drink during Prohibition.

“Julia was a driven professional with everything to live for. Never in a billion years would she have touched anything with fentanyl,” he said. “This is like putting bullets in people’s brains.”

‘Can u come thru?’

March 17 in New York City is usually festive for St. Patrick’s Day. In 2021, the parade was canceled for a second year and most big company offices were shut. Only around 30% of adults in the city had received at least a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

In the East Village, Ms. Ghahramani, the litigation associate, was one of millions of young Americans starting their career outside of a workplace. She had graduated virtually from Columbia Law School in May 2020 while her parents snapped photos of her and the screen in their Greenwich, Conn., living room.

The daughter of Iranian-born Mr. Ghahramani, an investment research firm founder, and Lily Ann Marden, a real estate finance executive, Ms. Ghahramani made a vow in high school to somehow change the world. She helped give pro bono legal advice to immigrants and advocated for gun control. She spoke on the steps of City Hall as a main organizer of a “March for Our Lives” attended by 150,000 following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in February 2018.

For much of the pandemic, Ms. Ghahramani retreated to her family’s home to work remotely and spend time with her parents and younger twin siblings.

Her final week, Ms. Ghahramani headed back to her Avenue B apartment, saying she had work to do before a family trip the next weekend to celebrate the Persian new year. Ms. Ghahramani told friends and family the workload was intense but that she was loving her first job.

On Wednesday, Ms. Ghahramani sent a text to a phone that prosecutors said belonged to the alleged dispatcher for the drug delivery service, Billy Ortega.

According to his lawyer, Mr. Ortega was a stay-at-home dad in a house in rural New Jersey. According to prosecutors, Mr. Ortega arranged drug deals from the house. He pleaded not guilty to causing the three deaths and distributing drugs and is awaiting trial.

“Can u come thru?,” Ms. Ghahramani wrote.

“I’ll send them right now if you want.”

“That would be great thank you really appreciate it.”

“No worries we family.”

After getting the text, prosecutors said, Mr. Ortega asked a courier, Kaylen Rainey, to handle the day’s deliveries. Mr. Ortega sent him Ms. Ghahramani’s address and instructions to collect $200, prosecutors said, citing texts on their phones.

Prosecutors said Mr. Rainey lived in an apartment registered to Mr. Ortega’s family in public housing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

He and another courier rented Zipcars to deliver drugs to neighborhoods across Manhattan, prosecutors alleged, collecting up to thousands of dollars a stop. Mr. Rainey pleaded not guilty to causing the deaths and distributing drugs and is awaiting trial.

Nine minutes after the texts, according to police and surveillance footage, Mr. Rainey buzzed Ms. Ghahramani’s apartment bell.

Around six hours after the delivery, her phone pinged.

“Hey” “Hey you there”

Seven calls came in that night and the next morning from the delivery-service number.

Ms. Marden woke that morning in Connecticut knowing something was wrong because she hadn’t heard from her daughter. A friend of Ms. Ghahramani went to the apartment and found her dead, holding her phone. Persian pastries she had ordered for the weekend were in the refrigerator.

“She made a mistake,” Mr. Ghahramani said. “She had a hit of coke and unbeknownst to her it was loaded with fentanyl and it killed her.”

Derailed lives

Cocaine has long had allure in New York City, where in the 1980s it became associated with jet setting clubbers and elite professionals. Usage estimates in the city remain higher than the roughly 2% national rate of Americans taking the drug annually for the past two decades.

The addition of fentanyl into supplies in the past decade has tripled the yearly number of New Yorkers dying. Of 980 cocaine deaths in 2020, 81% involved fentanyl, according to the most recent New York City health department data. The number of people dying from cocaine alone has held steady in the low hundreds.

Drug use overall rose during the pandemic, which derailed work routines and social lives. Fentanyl helped drive total drug fatalities higher. Deaths hit an annual high of 107,521 people in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up 51% since 2019. Three-quarters of the 2021 deaths involved fentanyl, the CDC said.

New York City authorities have been warning of the risks of unknowingly taking fentanyl in cocaine and of its increased presence in cocaine seized by police. Health officials put up posters and sent drink coasters to clubs warning cocaine users to start with a small dose and to have naloxone, an opioid reversal drug, on hand to counter an overdose. They are handing out fentanyl testing strips that can be used to test cocaine and other drugs for fentanyl’s presence.

Multiple people died within hours from tainted cocaine in Long Island, N.Y., and in Newport Beach, Calif., last year. Nine were killed in Washington, D.C., in January. Law-enforcement officials said dealers often use coffee grinders or other basic equipment to cut drugs and prepare them for sale, which can result in deadly batches...

Their America Is Vanishing. Like Trump, They Insist They Were Cheated.

At the New York Times, "The white majority is fading, the economy is changing and there’s a pervasive sense of loss in districts where Republicans fought the outcome of the 2020 election":

When Representative Troy Nehls of Texas voted last year to reject Donald J. Trump’s electoral defeat, many of his constituents back home in Fort Bend County were thrilled.

Like the former president, they have been unhappy with the changes unfolding around them. Crime and sprawl from Houston, the big city next door, have been spilling over into their once bucolic towns. (“Build a wall,” Mr. Nehls likes to say, and make Houston pay.) The county in recent years has become one of the nation’s most diverse, where the former white majority has fallen to just 30 percent of the population.

Don Demel, a 61-year-old salesman who turned out last month to pick up a signed copy of a book by Mr. Nehls about the supposedly stolen election, said his parents had raised him “colorblind.” But the reason for the discontent was clear: Other white people in Fort Bend “did not like certain people coming here,” he said. “It’s race. They are old-school.”

A shrinking white share of the population is a hallmark of the congressional districts held by the House Republicans who voted to challenge Mr. Trump’s defeat, a New York Times analysis found — a pattern political scientists say shows how white fear of losing status shaped the movement to keep him in power.

The portion of white residents dropped about 35 percent more over the last three decades in those districts than in territory represented by other Republicans, the analysis found, and constituents also lagged behind in income and education. Rates of so-called deaths of despair, such as suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related liver failure, were notably higher as well.

Although overshadowed by the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the House vote that day was the most consequential of Mr. Trump’s ploys to overturn the election. It cast doubt on the central ritual of American democracy, galvanized the party’s grass roots around the myth of a stolen victory and set a precedent that legal experts — and some Republican lawmakers — warn could perpetually embroil Congress in choosing a president.

To understand the social forces converging in that historic vote — objecting to the Electoral College count — The Times examined the constituencies of the lawmakers who joined the effort, analyzing census and other data from congressional districts and interviewing scores of residents and local officials. The Times previously revealed the back-room maneuvers inside the House, including convincing lawmakers that they could reject the results without explicitly endorsing Mr. Trump’s outlandish fraud claims.

Many of the 139 objectors, including Mr. Nehls, said they were driven in part by the demands of their voters. “You sent me to Congress to fight for President Trump and election integrity,” Mr. Nehls wrote in a tweet on Jan. 5, 2021, “and that’s exactly what I am doing.” At a Republican caucus meeting a few days later, Representative Bill Johnson, from an Ohio district stretching into Appalachia, told colleagues that his constituents would “go ballistic” with “raging fire” if he broke with Mr. Trump, according to a recording.

Certain districts primarily reflect either the racial or socioeconomic characteristics. But the typical objector district shows both — a fact demographers said was striking.

Because they are more vulnerable, disadvantaged or less educated white voters can feel especially endangered by the trend toward a minority majority, said Ashley Jardina, a political scientist at George Mason University who studies the attitudes of those voters.

“A lot of white Americans who are really threatened are willing to reject democratic norms,” she said, “because they see it as a way to protect their status.”

That may help explain why the dispute over Mr. Trump’s defeat has emerged at this moment in history, with economic inequality reaching new heights and the white population of the United States expected within about two decades to lose its majority.

Many of the objectors’ districts started with a significantly larger Black minority, or had a rapid increase in the Hispanic population, making the decline in the white population more pronounced.

Of the 12 Republican-held districts that swung to minority white — almost all in California and Texas — 10 were represented by objectors. The most significant drops occurred in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs and California desert towns, where the white percentage fell by more than a third. Lawmakers who objected were also overrepresented among the 70 Republican-held districts with the lowest percentages of college graduates. In one case — the southeast Kentucky district of Hal Rogers, currently the longest-serving House member — about 14 percent of residents had four-year degrees, less than half the average in the districts of Republicans who accepted the election results.

Many residents say they have lost faith in political leaders — except for former President Donald J. Trump. Montgomery County, Va., is in one of the country’s poorest congressional districts. Many residents say they have lost faith in political leaders — except for former President Donald J. Trump.Credit...Laura Saunders for The New York Times

While Mr. Nehls’s district exemplifies demographic change, Representative H. Morgan Griffith’s in southwest Virginia is among the poorest in the country. Once dominated by coal, manufacturing and tobacco, the area’s economic base eroded with competition from new energy sources and foreign importers. Doctors prescribed opioids to injured laborers and an epidemic of addiction soon followed.

Residents, roughly 90 percent of them white, gripe that the educated elites of the Northern Virginia suburbs think that “the state stops at Roanoke.” They take umbrage at what they consider condescension from outsiders who view their communities as poverty-stricken, and they bemoan “Ph.D pollution” from the big local university, Virginia Tech. After a long history of broken government promises, many said in interviews they had lost faith in the political process and public institutions — in almost everyone but Mr. Trump, who they said championed their cause.

Marie March, a restaurant owner in the town of Christiansburg, said she embodied “the mind-set of the Trump MAGA voter.” “You feel like you’re the underdog and you don’t get a fair shake, so you look for people that are going to shake it up,” she said of the local support for Mr. Trump’s dispute of the election results. “We don’t feel like we’ve had a voice.”

Ms. March, who said she attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington but did not go to the Capitol, was inspired by Mr. Trump to win a seat in the state legislature last year. She said she could drive 225 miles east from the Kentucky border and see only Trump signs. No one in the region could imagine that he received fewer votes than President Biden, she insisted...

 

Daniel Wilson, Robopocalypse

At Amazon, Daniel Wilson, Robopocalypse: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries).

sc

Confessions of the Libs of TikTok

At AoSHQ, "Detransitioners tell harrowing stories about being rushed into gender "transitions" they weren't ready for -- and didn't even want."

Andy B. Campbell, We Are Proud Boys

At Amazon, Andy B. Campbell, We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism.

Enjoy

What a lovely, Oriental themed.

'Kanye West's Dark, Twisted Fantasy

From Bari Weiss, at her Substack, "And Jewish reality":

Yesterday was any given Sunday in America, which meant that most Jews were not at all astonished when we looked down at our phones and discovered a former president was calling us ingrates and one of the most famous artists in the world was doing Louis Farrakhan one better. We are long past astonishment.

For those who don’t have an anxious Jewish mother or an internet connection, here’s a glimpse of this past weekend’s bile, starting with Kanye West.

“On TMZ I just saw yesterday it said, ’Pete Davidson and Kim have sex by the fireplace to honor their grandmother.’ It’s Jewish Zionists that’s about that life. That’s telling this Christian woman that has four black children to put that out as a message,” he said on a podcast, in which he went unchallenged by the hosts.

Another clip: “Jewish people have owned the black voice. Whether it’s through us wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt, or it’s all of us being signed to a record label, or having a Jewish manager, or being signed to a Jewish basketball team, or doing a movie on a Jewish platform like Disney.”

And another: “You know they came into money through the lawyers, when after Wall Street when all of the, like, the Catholics, they wouldn’t divorce people so the Jewish lawyers came and they were willing to divorce people. That’s when they first came into their money.”

In one interview—an interview that the host, a rapper who goes by the name N.O.R.E, celebrated as having gotten more views than Sunday night football—West pulled off a perfect antisemitic hat trick: nod to our apparent sexual deviancy and perversion; accuse us of exploiting other minorities for our benefit; and suggest that our success is ill-gotten. It was almost impressive.

While those clips were going viral, Donald Trump offered his own take on American Jews. “No President has done more for Israel than I have,” the former president wrote on his platform, Truth Social. “Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story—Highest approval rating in the World, could easily be PM! US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel—Before it is too late!”

Here is the part of the column where I tell you things that are also true.

Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, is a brilliant musician. He is a brilliant musician who is mentally ill.

Also: The Trump White House did a tremendous amount for the cause of Middle East peace.

But those facts do not undermine what is undeniable. Namely, that the wealthiest musician in the world appears to hold deeply conspiratorial views about Jews informed by the antisemite Louis Farrakhan and a hate cult called the Black Hebrew Israelites, whose worldview—black people are chosen by God; Jews are pretenders—is disturbingly prevalent in large parts of American culture. And that the former president is criticizing American Jews for being ungrateful, commanding them to show him proper respect—and issuing a veiled threat if they do not. (His staunchest supporters may insist that Trump’s warning “Before it is too late!” meant “Before it is too late for America” or perhaps “too late for Israel,” the implication being that Biden isn’t as supportive of the Jewish state and so Jews need to support Trump. However you read the opaque missive, the toxic notion of the ungrateful Jew is unambiguous.)

...

2022 May Come Down to Last Gust of Political Wind

From Charlie Cook, at the Cook Political Report:

One thing on which strategists in both parties agree is that next month’s elections will feature a very high turnout level, a continuation of the last two cycles: 2018 featured the largest midterm turnout in 104 years, 2020 the biggest presidential turnout in 120 years. In recent elections it’s become a cliché for partisans to talk about the importance of mobilizing their base, yet in neither of the past two elections have they had much to worry about. This midterm doesn’t figure to end the high-turnout trend.

A hallmark of midterm elections is that those in or leaning toward the party of a sitting president are lethargic, complacent, or at least a little disappointed, and less likely to vote in the general election. True to form, that is the situation Democrats had going into this past summer. Republicans were just more motivated. That gap closed during the second half of the summer and into September. Indeed, the Fox News poll released this week shows Democrats now just as motivated as Republicans.

The extreme partisan polarization in recent years has yielded fewer “true independents,” ones who do not identify with or even lean toward either party, and fewer people voting split tickets. Indeed, few Democrats will now even consider voting for a Republican for anything, nor Republicans cast a ballot for a Democrat. With the party lines so rigorously followed, we now have higher floors and lower ceilings, meaning that in most competitive states and districts, the margins are rarely more than low- to mid-single digits and the trailing candidate usually remains within striking distance of the leader, hoping that circumstances or a key event will enable them to close the gap and surge or just edge ahead.

But just because there are fewer true independents or undecided voters in key races doesn’t mean they are any less important. Indeed, with both parties’ bases so thoroughly motivated, any meaningful growth in support has to come from those non-aligned voters in the middle.

The two closest Senate races in the country are in Nevada and Ohio...

RTWT.

 

'Biden: Releasing 15 Million More Barrels of Oil Reserves Right Before Election ‘Not Politically Motivated at All!’'

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, a huge roundup, "GREAT MOMENTS IN MALARKEY."

Dreo 2022 Upgraded Oscillating Space Heater

Winter is coming.

See, Dreo 2022 Upgraded Oscillating Space Heater, Fast Quiet Portable Heater, with Tip-over & Overheat Protection, Remote, 12H Timer, LED Display, Touch Control, Metal Electric Heater for Office Indoor Use.

BONUS: Ceramic Space Tower Heater - 1500W Electric Portable Heater with Thermostat, Fast Quiet Heating Features Built-in 12H Timer, Oscillating Heater with Remote for Office Bedroom Desk and Indoor Use.

Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia

At Amazon, Bradford DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century.

Kim Denise

On Instagram.

Thomas Patterson, How America Lost Its Mind

At Amazon, Thomas Patterson, How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That's Crippling Our Democracy.

Liz Truss Fires Home Secretary Hours After Being Jeered in U.K. Parliament (VIDEO)

This woman is in political trouble, man.

At the New York Times, "Britain’s prime minister dismissed Suella Braverman after an email breach. Ms. Truss was also grilled in Parliament over her repudiated budget":

LONDON — Fighting for her political survival after the collapse of her economic agenda, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain suffered another heavy blow on Wednesday after she was forced to fire one of her most senior cabinet ministers, the second major ouster in a six-week-old government that has tumbled into chaos.

Hours after Ms. Truss rejected demands to resign herself — “I’m a fighter and not a quitter,” she declared — the prime minister dismissed the home secretary, Suella Braverman, over a security breach involving a government document that Ms. Braverman had sent to a lawmaker in Parliament through her personal email.

Last Friday, Ms. Truss fired her chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, who was the architect of the sweeping tax cuts that rattled financial markets and sent the British pound into a tailspin. The government’s subsequent reversal of those measures has left Ms. Truss’s grip on power into doubt — an impression deepened by Ms. Braverman’s blunt criticism of the government on her way out.

Appearing at a stormy session of prime minister’s questions in Parliament, Ms. Truss repeated her apology for the disastrous fiscal program. But she insisted that she could continue to govern despite all the turmoil.

“I had to take the decision because of the economic situation to adjust our policies,” Ms. Truss said, her obvious understatement drawing catcalls from opposition lawmakers and pained expressions from members of her own Conservative Party.

It was a brutal ordeal for Ms. Truss in only her third appearance for such questioning as prime minister. While political analysts said that the session had not produced the kind of knockout blow that would make Ms. Truss’s ouster imminent, the emergence of the news about Ms. Braverman only a few hours later exposed bitter rifts in the cabinet and a prime minister largely at the mercy of events.

Late on Wednesday, there was another eruption of chaos over a vote on whether to ban hydraulic fracking. Amid shifting instructions from Downing Street about how Conservative lawmakers should vote, tempers rose, there were reports — later contradicted by the government — that the government’s chief whip had resigned, and even accusations that some members were manhandled by senior ministers.

Ms. Braverman, a hard-liner who was hostile to moves to allow more immigrants into Britain to help boost the economy, acknowledged she was guilty of a technical breach of security rules. But in her letter of resignation to Ms. Truss, she said she had “concerns about the direction of this government,” accusing it of breaking pledges to voters and, in particular, of failing to curb immigration.

“I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign,” Ms. Braverman added in a reference some saw as an implicit rebuke to Ms. Truss, who has refused to quit despite her admission of a bigger error.

Ms. Braverman was replaced by Grant Shapps, a more centrist figure, whose appointment underscored the shift in the political balance of the cabinet away from the hard-liners who supported Ms. Truss in the leadership contest she recently won and the rising influence of the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.

Both men supported the former chancellor, Rishi Sunak, when he ran, unsuccessfully, against Ms. Truss, warning that her economic agenda was a fairy tale. And Mr. Shapps’s support for Mr. Sunak was the reason he was not offered a cabinet job by Ms. Truss when she came to power...

Still more.

 

Amber Lee's Wednesday Forecast

Ms. Amber's very pregnant!

And boy, it's a scorcher today. 

At CBS 2 Los Angeles:

Yorba Linda Public School District Bans Critical Race Theory. Cal State Fullerton Retaliates by Pulling Teacher-Trainees from the District's Educational Programs

Critical race theory, arghh! It's the cancer of society, gawd.

CSU Fullerton's School of Education is literally punishng the Yorba Linda School District for the crime of its Board of Trustees prohibiting critical theory indoctrination of its students. Just one more salvo in the culture wars, one might say, and a particularly viscous one. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "After O.C. school district bans critical race theory, it faces Cal State Fullerton backlash":

Months after an Orange County school district banned teaching critical race theory, Cal State Fullerton has told school officials it is pausing placement of its student teachers in the system’s K-12 classrooms, citing concerns that district policies conflict with university goals that promote equity and inclusion in education.

Leaders in the university’s College of Education — among the biggest providers of teachers into the county’s public schools — told officials in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District that they did not believe the district would be able to support its student teachers whose training is rooted in diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice and tenets of critical race theory, according to a statement from the college.

“Clinical practicums, fieldwork and student teaching are major components of effective teacher preparation,” Lisa Kirtman, dean of the College of Education, said in the statement. “It is critical that we place teacher candidates in districts that support their growth and development.”

She added that she is open to working with the district to provide learning experiences that value “freedom of thought and expression” for the diverse student population.

Kirtman was not available for comment Tuesday afternoon. In an email, a university spokesperson said “the situation is still unfolding.”

Six student teachers from Cal State Fullerton are working in the Placentia-Yorba Linda district this academic year, down from the 70 or 80 teachers that have typically been placed in the system.

In a message to families, district Supt. Michael Matthews said leaders in CSUF’s College of Education asked the district over the summer about its commitment to “providing a just, equitable and inclusive education” after the district board narrowly approved a measure in April banning the teaching of critical race theory...

So much leftist race-ideology hogwash being rammed down the throats of our kids. The School of Education's condescension is despicable. 

RTWT.

Voters Overwhelmingly believe American Democracy is Under Threat, But No One Wants to Lift a Finger to Save It

You gotta love this country, especially all the gullible lambs being led to the slaughter. Oh, the country's on the brink? Who cares?!!

Actually, democracy's not on the ballot, is not in danger, and this poll shows it. The New York Times asks leading questions and the rubes parrot what they've heard in the leftist press --- and on Twitter! (Hi Meathead!)

Here, "Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority":

In less than a month we will determine whether we want to continue living in a Constitutional Democracy or let our 246 year experiment in Self Rule give way to Fascism. There is only one way to avoid the latter: Pull the lever for a Democrat.

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) October 11, 2022

Voters overwhelmingly believe American democracy is under threat, but seem remarkably apathetic about that danger, with few calling it the nation’s most pressing problem, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.

In fact, more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.

The doubts about elections that have infected American politics since the 2020 contest show every sign of persisting well into the future, the poll suggested: Twenty-eight percent of all voters, including 41 percent of Republicans, said they had little to no faith in the accuracy of this year’s midterm elections.

Political disagreements appear to be seeping into the fabric of everyday life. Fourteen percent of voters said political views revealed a lot about whether someone is a good person, while 34 percent said it revealed a little. Nearly one in five said political disagreements had hurt relationships with friends or family.

“I do agree that the biggest threat is survival of our democracy, but it’s the divisiveness that is creating this threat,” said Ben Johnson, 33, a filmmaker from New Orleans and a Democrat. “It feels like on both sides, people aren’t agreeing on facts anymore. We can’t meet in the middle if we can’t agree on simple facts. You’re not going to be able to move forward and continue as a country if you can’t agree on facts.”

The poll showed that voters filtered their faith in democracy through a deeply partisan lens. A majority of voters in both parties identified the opposing party as a “major threat to democracy.”

Most Republicans said the dangers included President Biden, the mainstream media, the federal government and voting by mail. Most Democrats named Donald J. Trump, while large shares of the party’s voters also said the Supreme Court and the Electoral College were threats to democracy.

Seventy-one percent of all voters said democracy was at risk — but just 7 percent identified that as the most important problem facing the country.

These ostensibly conflicting views — that voters could be so deeply suspicious of one another and of the bedrock institutions of American democracy, while also expressing little urgency to address those concerns — may in part reflect longstanding frustrations and cynicism toward government.

Still, among voters who saw democracy as under threat, the vast majority, 81 percent, thought the country could fix the problem by using existing laws and institutions, rather than by going “outside the law,” according to the poll. Those who said violence would be necessary were a small minority. “If we’re just talking about freedom, having freedom, and that we get to have a say in our choices, then I think we still have that,” said Audra Janes, 37, a Republican from Garnavillo, Iowa. She added, “I think that we need to stop trying to rewrite the Constitution and just reread it.”

Overall, voters’ broader frustration with a political system that many view as dangerously divided and corrupt has left them pessimistic that the country is capable of coming together to solve its problems, no matter which party wins in November.

The poll’s findings reinforce the idea that for many Americans, this year’s midterm elections will be largely defined by rising inflation and other economic woes — leaving threats to the country’s democratic institutions lurking in the back of voters’ minds...

Theodora

On Twitter.

Kari Lake Pushes Back Hard on Leftist 'Election Denier' Smear

People are really impressed with this on Twitter. This woman's very likely to be Arizona's next governor. 

At the New York Times, "Lake Won’t Pledge to Accept Election Results, and More News From the Sunday Shows":

Savage Kari Lake is the best Kari Lake.

😂😂😂

Link to full video: https://t.co/lo2D9gV8Qw

(1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/P5DQnyfPU0

— Golden Advice 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲 (@RichardStiller4) October 18, 2022

"'Im going to win the election, and I will accept that result,' Kari Lake, a candidate for governor of Arizona, said on CNN..."

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, refused on Sunday to commit to accepting the results of her election, using much of the same language that former President Donald J. Trump did when he was a candidate.

“I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” Ms. Lake said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The host, Dana Bash, then asked, “If you lose, will you accept that?” Ms. Lake, who is running against Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, responded by repeating, “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”

“The people of Arizona will never support and vote for a coward like Katie Hobbs,” she added, setting up a framework in which, if Ms. Hobbs were to win, Ms. Lake could present the result as evidence of election fraud. That is one of the arguments Mr. Trump made, suggesting that the 2020 election must have been fraudulent because the idea of President Biden receiving majority support was unbelievable.

Four years earlier, in 2016, Mr. Trump told supporters, “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win.”

In the interview on Sunday, Ms. Lake, a former television news anchor, continued to embrace Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and said, “The real issue, Dana, is that the people don’t trust our elections.”

This is a common argument among Republicans, many of whom have stoked public distrust in elections and then used that distrust to justify restrictions on voting. Ms. Lake said the distrust dated back more than two decades, citing the 2000 presidential election dispute and Democrats’ claims of irregularities in 2004 and 2016, even though the Democratic candidates conceded and there were no extrajudicial efforts to overturn the results...

 

Vote for Peace, not Perpetual War, on Election Day

At the Orange County Register, "'Don’t Look Up,' the Academy Award-nominated film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, is one of Netflix’s most-watched movies this year. For good reason. It is the most potent political satire in recent memory — but not in the way it intends. The apocalyptic asteroid depicted hurtling toward Earth isn’t an appropriate metaphor for climate change, as the filmmakers imagine, but rather for nuclear war..."

Louise

 It's Louise Mensch, former British Member of Parliament and current anti-Putin hardliner on Twitter. 

From last night, on Twitter, "Really looking forward to going on @PiersUncensored tonight with the wonderful @gilliantett and @VickyPJWard : where does Liz Truss go from here?"

BONUS, from earlier today: "Excited to talk Meghan and Harry’s latest escapades with @PiersMorgan and @KatTimpf on @PiersUncensored … minus the reading glasses. :)."

Russia Nationalizes ExxonMobil's Holdings in Sakhalin-2 Oil and Gas Project at Sakhalin Island, Russia

This should be front-page news everywhere. 

ExxonMobil wrote down $3.4 billion relating to it's exit from the Sakalin-2 development. 

I'm gobsmacked at stories like this. We've toppled Third World regimes for less. And now? The war in Ukraine drags on and on in its ugly attrition stalemate. How many times are we going to hear, "Ukraine Forces Make Gains in Zaporizhzhia!," or whatever? *Eye-roll.*

At the Wall Street Journal, "Russia Wipes Out Exxon’s Stake in Sakhalin Oil-and-Gas Project":

Energy company says it has left the country after Moscow transferred its holding to Russian entity.

The Kremlin has pushed Exxon XOM 0.18%▲ Mobil Corp. out of a major Russian oil-and-gas project and transferred the Texas oil giant’s stake to a Russian entity, according to the U.S. company.

Moscow blocked Exxon’s efforts to transfer operatorship and sell its 30% stake in the Sakhalin-1 venture in Russia’s Far East for months, and has now wiped out Exxon’s stake entirely. Exxon on Monday described Moscow’s move as expropriation and said it had pulled out of Russia.

The Kremlin didn’t provide any indication that it would pay Exxon for the value of its stake. Exxon said it has left its legal options open under its production-sharing agreement and international arbitration law. If the company pursues legal action, the matter could take years to resolve.

The largest U.S. oil company vowed in March to leave Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, saying it would make no further investments in the country. It had cultivated ties with Russia for decades, but had withdrawn from at least 10 other joint ventures after the U.S. and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia following its 2014 invasion of Crimea. Sakhalin-1 hadn’t been covered by those sanctions.

Exxon declared force majeure in April, and reduced production from the Sakhalin Island development to about 10,000 barrels of oil and natural gas a day, from 220,000. It also took a $3.4 billion accounting charge related to its Russia exit in the first quarter.

European oil companies with interests in Russia have also worked to exit from the country. In February, Shell SHEL 0.06%▲ PLC said it would exit the Sakhalin-2 venture, another oil-and-gas project in Russia’s Far East, and BP BP 0.00%▲ PLC said it would exit its nearly 20% stake in state-run Rosneft.

Exxon’s exit was particularly complicated because it operated the project and is responsible for safety and environmental measures. The project hasn’t been fully shut down, in part because it provides power to the residents of Sakhalin Island, which is an environmentally sensitive area. Finding a counterparty capable of handling the complex project had been a difficult task. Exxon had operated Sakhalin-1 since the 1990s.

“Our priority all along has been to be a responsible operator by protecting employees, the environment and the integrity of operations at Sakhalin-1,” Exxon spokeswoman Meghan Macdonald said.

Reuters reported Exxon’s exit earlier Monday.

Exxon and its partners had a production-sharing agreement in place since the 1990s. Exxon Neftegas Ltd., a unit of the U.S. oil company, owned 30% of the project and was its operator. Rosneft owns 20%, while Japan’s Sodeco and India’s ONGC Videsh separately own portions.

Exxon expects about 700 employees of its Russian unit to transition to the new operator.

A decree from President Vladimir Putin this month handed Exxon’s stake to a newly created Russian company and said Exxon and other foreign partners of the Sakhalin-1 consortium could apply for ownership in the new entity. Exxon’s exit signals it has no plans to apply for ownership in the project...

North Face Men's Insulated Jacket

Get ready for the cold.

Here, The North Face Men's Aconcagua Insulated Jacket.

Also, The North Face Men’s Bedford Down Parka.

Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The winner of the Booker Prize, announced today. 

See, "Shehan Karunatilaka wins Booker prize for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida."

And at Amazon, Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

Saul David, Devil Dogs

At Amazon, Saul David, Devil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan.