At Amazon, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text.
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Twitter Files 8: Twitter's Joint Propaganda Efforts With CENTCOM and the Pentagon
Also, "The FBI Paid Twitter Three and a Half Million Dollars to 'Help' It Censor 'Misinformation'."
And from yesterday, "Twitter Files Part 7: The Guns Begin to Smoke."
See also, Michael Shellenberger, from yesterday:
We expect the FBI, our highest law enforcement organization, to be above politics. The Twitter Files show that it isn't.
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 20, 2022
We need a serious congressional investigation and perhaps a special counsel to get to the bottom of its apparent corruption. https://t.co/AtU08zfsYS
Magnitude 6.4 Earthquake Hits Northern California (VIDEO)
It's Ferndale, at small town on the NorCal Coast.
At the Los Angeles Times, "At least 2 dead, 11 injured in 6.4 earthquake in Northern California."
That's a big quake.
More at KPIX CBS News 5 San Francisco:
Rise of the DeSantis Democrats
From Olivia Reingold, at Bari Weiss's "Free Press" (formerly "Common Sense"), "Like Reagan Democrats once upon a time, these voters have already reshaped the political landscape in Florida. Can they do the same nationally in 2024?":
MIAMI—It’s almost 11 p.m. on a recent Friday night at ONE Gentlemens Club, and it’s dead except for the girls in their thongs, sitting on pleather couches, waiting for someone to give a lap dance to. No one can talk to anyone else. It’s too loud for that, what with the electronic drum, the incessant rapping. The rap is supposed to inspire twerking—and tens. Tonight, no one’s twerking. Tory Williams is alone at the bar in fishnets and boots. She should be mixing drinks. “Did you vote in the recent election?” I write in my notebook, then pass it to her. She nods. When I ask who she voted for, a grin appears. “DUH-SAN-TIS,” she mouths. “Why DeSantis?” I shout. Williams is a black woman who looks to be pushing forty. She has a fiancé and, after two slow years, a job. It was her brother, she says, who made her rethink her politics. Finally, she shouts back, over the bar, through the din: “Money.” Williams is one of the DeSantis Democrats: Florida voters who, until recently, identified as Democrats but in November opted to reelect Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—he who resisted the Covid lockdowns, tangled with Disney, and governed with a record budget surplus—in a landslide. It’s unclear how many DeSantis Democrats there are: DeSantis’ vote count jumped from roughly 4 million in 2018 to 4.6 million in 2022. Lots of those voters are presumably independents or Republicans who didn’t vote last time. But some are disaffected Democrats alienated from the party they once belonged to. That’s evident from the longtime Democratic strongholds that DeSantis flipped, including Hillsborough, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, where DeSantis skyrocketed from a 21-point loss in 2018 to an 11-point win in 2022—a net gain of more than 30 percentage points. Democratic Palm Beach County Commissioner Dave Kerner says he identifies as a DeSantis Democrat, “and I can tell you I’m not the only one.” “As I traveled around the state and throughout my county over the past several years, at first it was quiet, you know, ‘This governor is doing a great job’—and this is amongst my Democratic colleagues,” he told me. “Then I started hearing it more and hearing it more. And then I saw my own county—which has been majority blue throughout probably its entire history—we saw more people vote for the Republican candidate over the Democratic candidate.” Kerner is 39, a former cop, and a former member of Florida’s House of Representatives. He’s best known for successfully strangling a bill, strongly backed by the National Rifle Association, that would have made it harder to prosecute anyone in a Stand Your Ground-related shooting. In 2022, he says, he backed DeSantis because he’s not anti-cop. And because, Kerner says, he makes things happen. “It wasn’t necessarily about partisan identity but the man himself—even if you didn’t agree with his policies, the way that he was so effective,” he says. The big question is whether people like Kerner are just one-time Republican voters, or if they’ll become permanent Republicans. Whether people Tory Williams can be convinced to keep voting for a party that, until a few months ago, she never imagined voting for...
'Your Government at Work'
Here's Kim Strassel, on Twitter, slamming the $1.7 billion *bipartisan* "Omnibus" legislation coming out of Congress today.
2. It's also that Congress, in a new trick, is attaching dozens of pieces of stand-alone legislation to this--retirement changes; public lands management; healthcare policy; cosmetics regulation; electoral count act changes; horseracing rules.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 20, 2022
Gal Gadot Not 'Booted' From DC Cinematic Universe
James Gunn is the co-CEO of DC Studios. He's responding to reports that Gal Godot has been fired as "Wonder Woman," from the DC cinematic universe.
Twitter blew up yesterday, though we have reports to the contrary today.
At Deadline, "James Gunn Shoots Down Claim Gal Gadot Was “Booted” From DC Universe After ‘Wonder Woman 3’ Axing."
And on Twitter today, Gal Gadot's all, "Hey, your loss, not mine":
A Diminished Trump Meets a Damning Narrative
At the New York Times, "Former President Donald Trump’s current woes extend beyond the report by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the case the panel laid out against him further complicates his future":
As the summer and the House Jan. 6 committee’s hearings began, former President Donald J. Trump was still a towering figure in Republican politics, able to pick winners in primary contests and force candidates to submit to a litmus test of denialism about his loss in the 2020 election. Six months later, Mr. Trump is significantly diminished, a shrunken presence on the political landscape. His fade is partly a function of his own missteps and miscalculations in recent months. But it is also a product of the voluminous evidence assembled by the House committee and its ability to tell the story of his efforts to overturn the election in a compelling and accessible way. In ways both raw and easily digested, and with an eye for vivid detail, the committee spooled out the episodic narrative of a president who was told repeatedly he had lost and that his claims of fraud were fanciful. But Mr. Trump continued pushing them anyway, plotted to reverse the outcome, stoked the fury of his supporters, summoned them to Washington and then stood by as the violence played out. It was a turnabout in roles for a president who rose first to prominence and then to the White House on the basis of his feel for how to project himself on television. Guided by a veteran television executive, the committee sprinkled the story with moments that stayed in the public consciousness, from Mr. Trump throwing his lunch in anger against the wall of the dining room just off the Oval Office to a claim that he lunged at a Secret Service agent driving his car when he was denied his desire to join his supporters at the Capitol. On Monday — the second anniversary of Mr. Trump’s Twitter post urging his followers to come to Washington to protest his loss, promising it “will be wild!” — the committee wrapped up its case by lending the weight of the House to calls for Mr. Trump to be held criminally liable for his actions and making the case that he should never again be allowed to hold power...
That's what it's all about. That's always been what it's all about.
Sunday, December 18, 2022
L.A.'s P-22 Has Been Put Down
The coolest cougar, the most obstreperous mountain lion to walk the hills of Los Angeles --- if not the only one to walk the hills of Los Angeles!
People are literally bawling over the death of this animal.
At the Los Angeles Times, "P-22, L.A. celebrity mountain lion, euthanized due to severe injuries."
P-22 on the front page of today’s @latimes, in the photo that made him famous.
— Laura J. Nelson 🦅 (@laura_nelson) December 18, 2022
My obituary with @JamesQueallyLAT: https://t.co/Mg9ct3NeTL pic.twitter.com/Xt4i2pTppG
We are deeply saddened by the news of the passing of P-22, L.A.’s beloved mountain lion. We were just informed that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made the difficult decision to euthanize him due to the serious injuries he suffered earlier in the week. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/2ZX7HYR0J7
— Natural History Museum of L.A. County (@NHMLA) December 17, 2022
We join our partners, friends, and community members here in Los Angeles, and around the world, in remembering mountain lion P-22: https://t.co/XOC1XCbico
— Santa Monica Mtns (@SantaMonicaMtns) December 17, 2022
Goodbye, P-22. Your scientific legacy will live on.
Photo by Steve Winter pic.twitter.com/4ZfISqgjF3
Another Veronica
Following-up from last night, Veronika.
Here's Veronica Bielik, on Instagram (smokin' on Instagram, dang!).
Antisemitism Is Rising at Colleges, and Jewish Students Are Facing Growing Hostility
Yes, and it ain't "right-wing" antisemitism.
At the Wall Street Journal, "Some students report being spat upon and harassed, while some campus groups have forced out those who support Israel":
Some college students say they have started hiding their Jewish identity in fear of rising antisemitism. “We have basically been shunned.” https://t.co/ibsI06h6xa
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 14, 2022
Adina Pinsker commutes to Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., to study supply-chain management. She is also active in Hillel International, the nation’s largest collegiate Jewish organization. When she arrives on campus, she takes an indirect route to class and tucks inside her shirt the silver Star of David she wears around her neck. These are precautions, she said, to avoid harassment from students who dislike Israel, the people who support it, or both. “We have basically been shunned,” said Ms. Pinsker, who said she has been subject to derogatory remarks about her beliefs. Ms. Pinsker’s actions are emblematic of rising fear among some Jewish college students around the country, who have begun shrouding their religious identity and political beliefs to avoid growing ostracism and harassment, according to interviews with dozens of students. College campuses have long hosted heated debates about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But now, students say anti-Jewish antagonism is on the rise: Antisemitic incidents have increased, and a growing number of campus groups bar students who support Israel from speaking or joining. Hostility, including vandalism, threats and slurs toward Jewish students on college campuses increased more than threefold to 155 incidents in 2021 from 47 in 2014, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based Jewish civil rights organization which has tracked reports of such behavior since 2014. The group counted 2,717 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. overall last year, up 34% from 2020 and the highest number in its records dating to 1979. Students at schools including the University of Vermont, Wellesley College and DePaul University have ejected Jewish students who support Israel from clubs and study groups, according to interviews with affected students. Students at Tufts University, University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles tried to prevent Jewish classmates from serving in student government or attempted to remove them from positions in student government because of their support of Israel, according to students, administrators and campus news reports. The uptick in incidents and tension on some campuses comes amid a string of recent high-profile controversies that have drawn renewed attention to antisemitism. This month Twitter suspended the account of rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West—who now goes by the name Ye—after he tweeted to his 32 million followers an image of a swastika merged with the Star of David, weeks after he tweeted: “I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” On campus, students say that stereotypical antisemitic slurs are directed at Jews, but that much of the hostility derives from growing criticism of Israel’s handling of its political and military conflict with Palestinians over land rights. Jewish students say harassment often compounds when criticism of Israel increases. Most American Jews feel an attachment to Israel, though many are critical of the Israeli government, according to a 2021 survey from the Pew Research Center. Some of the conflict on campus stems from competing definitions of antisemitism and anti-Zionism and whether they overlap. Anti-Zionism is a political position distinct from antisemitism, which is a prejudice, said Dylan Saba, an attorney with New York-based Palestine Legal, which works to support the civil and constitutional rights of people in the U.S. who advocate for Palestinians. The two are conflated by supporters of Israel to discredit critics, he said. Condemning Israel may make some Jewish students feel uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it is antisemitic, he said. “All we are asking for is equal rights,” he said...Bullshit.
Anti-Zionism is anti-Israel is antisemitic. Full stop. "From the desert to the sea, Palestine will be free" means wiping Israel --- and all its Jewish citizens --- off the face of the map.
It's easy to prove, too. Just walk up to any pro-Palestine student organization --- literally in any college campus in America --- and ask its leaders if they support Hamas. In my experience they will not answer. Not only that, in my case, they'll call the police on you.
Race for the Next RNC Chair Gets Ugly
Ronna McDaniel's performance as party chair since 2016 has been pathetic. I don't think about it that much, but with Harmeet Dhillon in the race with a bulldog campaign to replace her, one takes notice.
At the Associated Press, "Inside the ugly fight to become the next Republican chair."
And on Fox News with Laura Ingraham:
The Obligatory Taylor Lorenz Suspended From Twitter Post
Lorenz is headlining on Memeorandum.
She long ago blocked me, but it's not hard to find out what evils she's up to on the platform.
Elon's suspended her. Haven't heard yet if it's a permanent ban, but if anyone deserves it, it's Lorenz.
Too bad, though, because apparently she's been reinstated.
Her message to followers before the reinstatement, full of self-aggrandizement and unearned self-importance. Gawd:
Presstitutes https://t.co/mtFqUEuUX6
— 🍁 Bean 🍁 (@BeanFromPA) December 18, 2022
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Christmas Shopping
Check out all the sales, at Amazon.
BONUS: Husqvarna 570BTS powerful X-Torq engine, 65.6 cm³ Speed Backpack Blower.
The Most Empty Downtown in America
The nation's most empty downtown? That would be San Francisco's.
Michelle Tandler frequently talks about this on Twitter.
And now at the New York Times, "What Comes Next for the Most Empty Downtown in America":
What Comes Next for the Most Empty Downtown in America - The New York Times https://t.co/UP3hmmSwEZ
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 17, 2022
Tech workers are still at home. The $17 salad place is expanding into the suburbs. So what is left in San Francisco? The coffee rush. The lunch rush. The columns of headphone-equipped tech workers rushing in and out of train stations. The lanyard-wearing visitors who crowded the sidewalks when a big conference was in town. There was a time three years ago when a walk through downtown San Francisco was a picture of what it meant for a city to be economically successful. Take the five-minute jaunt from the office building at 140 New Montgomery Street to a line-out-the-door salad shop nearby. The 26-story building, an Art Deco landmark that was once the tallest in the city, began its life as the headquarters for the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company. Decades later, it served as the home of the local search company Yelp. The nearby salad store was part of a fast-growing chain called Mixt. Yelp and Mixt had little more than proximity in common, which at that time was enough. Yelp was an idea that became billions of dollars in value on the internet. Mixt was a booming business serving lunchtime salads to the workers who traveled on electrified trains and skateboards to their jobs in downtown cubicles. Their virtuous cycle of nearness, of new ideas becoming new companies, feeding other ideas that become other companies, was the template for urban growth. Businesses like Yelp took root in the high-energy, high-density city; chains like Mixt flourished alongside them as their workers ventured out for lunch. As downtowns have emptied out, their once-symbiotic relationship is coming undone. “This area was always packed with people,” recalled Maria Cerros-Mercado, a Mixt manager who built her career in food service downtown. “People would get off the BART, buy coffee, buy this, buy that. There was always just so much walking.” Today San Francisco has what is perhaps the most deserted major downtown in America. On any given week, office buildings are at about 40 percent of their prepandemic occupancy, while the vacancy rate has jumped to 24 percent from 5 percent since 2019. Occupancy of the city’s offices is roughly 7 percentage points below that of those in the average major American city, according to Kastle, the building security firm. More ominous for the city is that its downtown business district — the bedrock of its economy and tax base — revolves around a technology industry that is uniquely equipped and enthusiastic about letting workers stay home indefinitely. In the space of a few months, Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executive of Yelp, went from running a company that was rooted in the city to vacating Yelp’s longtime headquarters and allowing its roughly 4,400 employees to work from anywhere in their country...
Veronika
This is the smokin' hottie who wants to marry Tom Brady. See, "Model Veronika Rajek gushes over Tom Brady after wild post-divorce win."
Maybe he should give her a tryout, IYKWIMAITYD. (*Wink.*)
On Instagram.
Friday, December 16, 2022
Totem Electric Bike for Adults 26”
I appreciate those who've made purchases through my Amazon links.
Keep shopping! Nine days left till Christmas!
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