Tuesday 25 January 2022

Daily Digest

Daily Digest

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Biden Has a Moment of Lucidity [Updated]

Posted: 24 Jan 2022 04:58 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

Today Joe Biden held a press gaggle of some kind on the subject of rising prices. When he was done talking he took questions–well, actually, he didn’t. Several reporters wanted to ask him about Ukraine, which he shot down. But then Peter Doocy of Fox News asked an on-topic question: “Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?” Biden’s answer is blowing up Twitter:

I actually give Biden a little credit here. First of all, contrary to what many are saying, this is not a “hot mic” situation. Biden was perfectly aware that he was sitting at a microphone, ostensibly in order to answer questions, and that anything he said would be heard by everyone. He did it on purpose.

To me, what is notable about Biden’s answer is not that he said to Doocy, “You’re a stupid son of a bitch.” That is just Biden’s usual senile hatefulness. Rather, it is the fact that for a change, Biden was able to recognize reality, saying sarcastically, “It’s a great asset. More inflation.” That represents an unusual moment of lucidity. Even Joe Biden understands that rising prices are damaging to the Democrats.

Of course, it is one thing to understand that inflation is devastating politically, and something else to have any idea what to do about it. But let’s not expect too much from Joe, who, when it comes to solutions, is clueless as usual.

UPDATE: Biden has now apologized to Doocy:


It’s a little disappointing, in a way. Biden exercised the license of the diminished-capacity elderly to say what he really thought, and perhaps it is too bad that his handlers shut him up. After all, Biden didn’t say anything worse about Doocy than everyone else has been saying about Joe.

FURTHER UPDATE: Then again, maybe not:

The Washington Post on the murder epidemic in America’s cities

Posted: 24 Jan 2022 04:36 PM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

When I read this frontpage headline in the paper edition of yesterday’s Washington Post — “Cities look to halt deadly surge” — my first thought was that there is no significant surge in deaths from the coronavirus in our cities. But the Post wasn’t writing about the pandemic. It was writing about murders.

Yes, the Washington Post has finally acknowledged the epidemic of violent crime in America. No more emphasis on how the homicide rate is lower now than in the 1990s. It is, but that doesn’t make anyone feel safe — nor should it.

The Post’s article fails to live up to the promise of its title. Reporter Griff Witte seems uncertain as to why homicides are surging.

Is it “the coronavirus’ scars”? Is it “a breakdown in trust between police [forces] and the communities they serve”? Is it “the flood of illegal guns”? These are Witte’s prime suspects.

Eventually, he mentions “police departments stretched thin by attrition.” But Witte never gets around to explaining the attrition itself. Might it stem from lack of public support for, and constant demonizing of, police officers by liberals, including those at the Washington Post? Of course. See Baltimore’s experience.

Witte quotes the Fresno, California police chief who says “stimulating interest in joining the department has been challenging.” I wonder why.

Much of Witte’s article is devoted to suggesting that things might be turning around on the homicide front. He cites a few cities that experienced significant reductions in the number of homicides last year.

Complete nationwide figures for 2021 have not yet been released. But even if they were to show a decrease from 2020 — when homicides increased by nearly 5,000 from 2019 and reached a two-decade high — there wouldn’t be much solace in that.

Witte is interested in what might have caused the decrease in homicides in the few cities he mentions. Fair enough. He cites three factors: (1) measures to improve relations between the police and the community, (2) measures to address “the root causes of crime,” and (3) proactive policing, including a focus on patrolling the areas where most homicides occur.

As to the first factor, if relations between the police and the non-criminal community were as bad as the left has made them out to be, then it’s impossible to believe that, in one year, they were repaired to the point needed to affect the crime rate. As to the second, the root causes of crime can’t be ameliorated appreciably in a year

As to the third factor, BINGO.

But does the ACLU know about this targeted policing? Does the Biden Justice Department?

It wasn’t long ago — like maybe last week — that the left was complaining that the “over-policing” of black neighborhoods was oppressing African-Americans and skewing the black crime rate. It wasn’t all that long ago — like during the Obama years — that the DOJ was expressing the same concern.

Are we finally over that? Maybe. But the chief of police in Columbus, Ohio says that in using “data analysis, technological surveillance, and old-fashioned intelligence gathering” to identify areas in need of extra policing, she is careful, in the Post’s words, “not to overly rely on arrests and other shows of force.”

It’s never a good idea to “overly rely” on anything, but there is no good substitute for arresting criminals or else showing enough force to deter them from committing crimes. Cities probably won’t be able to halt the deadly surge in homicides if they pretend otherwise.

Who’s Carjacking?

Posted: 24 Jan 2022 04:13 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

In the Twin Cities, as throughout much of the country, rising crime is a top news story. While homicides draw the most headlines, the crime that has most instilled fear in law-abiding citizens, in my area at least, is carjacking.

I lived in the Twin Cities metro area for more than 40 years before, to my recollection, I ever heard the word “carjacking” in a local context. Now, carjackings are rampant, not only in the central cities but across the suburbs. Some carjackings are motivated by profit, while others apparently are carried out just for fun. Weapons are often used, and there have been some injuries, although I am not aware of anyone who had been murdered in the course of a carjacking. Most of these crimes reportedly are carried out by black juveniles or young adults.

Last week a two-person crime wave came to an end when two suspects, St. Paul residents, were arrested. The details shed light on the current public safety crisis:

Two teenagers are facing a combined 31 charges in connection to a string of carjackings, robberies, and thefts across 15 cities.

St. Paul residents Kashawn Wertman, 18, and Nautica Argue, 19, are accused of perpetrating nearly 25 carjacking-related offenses in St. Louis Park, Plymouth, Richfield, Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, Edina, White Bear Lake, Roseville, Columbia Heights, Lakeville, Eagan, Little Canada, Burnsville, Woodbury, and St. Paul.

Some of these were high-profile crimes that garnered significant media attention, such as a Jan. 9 carjacking outside of Wayzata East Middle School and an attempted carjacking at an Edina daycare on Jan. 12.

Their crime spree began on Jan. 7 when they allegedly stole a running vehicle out of a St. Louis Park woman's driveway in the middle of the day.

About an hour later, they carjacked a delivery driver at gunpoint in White Bear Lake, according to the allegations made against them in criminal complaints.

They stole a total of 10 vehicles and attempted to steal many more over the next several days.

Carjacking is intrinsically a crime of violence, which is why it has aroused so much fear and anger.

They didn't hesitate to use violence against their victims, often threatening to shoot those who resisted or punching them in the face. They snatched purses and phones along the way and often targeted multiple victims in the same attack.

These young career criminals seem to have absorbed the zeitgeist when it comes to law enforcement:

Upon his arrest, Wertman told police that they should be "out arresting murderers, not people who steal cars."

Hey, it’s only a property crime! Why are you getting upset? That attitude is consistent with with Black Lives Matter ideology, the defund the police movement, liberal theories of crime and punishment, and the general tolerance of lawlessness that we have seen in many American cities.

It is not, however, consistent with the views of any substantial number of voters, as liberal politicians are likely to learn in November.

Loose Ends (150)

Posted: 24 Jan 2022 03:02 PM PST

(Steven Hayward)

• It has finally happened, though it was bound to come to this eventually:

University puts TRIGGER WARNING on Orwell’s 1984

George Orwell’s iconic novel 1984, written in 1949 about the horrors of censorship and the threat of authoritarianism, is being censored by a university. The University of Northampton in Orwell’s own England has issued a trigger warning on the book, with staff claiming that the book contains “explicit material” and that some student may find the work to be “offensive and unsettling.”

• Aaaannndd guess what’s racist now: potholders. I’m not making this up. It’s in USA Today, so it must be true.

How potholders got me thinking about racism, my father and the whitewashing of US history

Last month, the day after Christmas, I taught two of our young granddaughters how to weave potholders. . .

You know how the mind works. One thing reminds us of this, and then this, and then this. . .  I thought about how too many white parents and elected officials these days don't want their white children to learn about our country's history of racism.

Is there not a single editor in the newsroom at USA Today to ask, “You know, if we publish this piece, people will laugh at how stupid we are?” Apparently not.

• Meanwhile, you may recall mention recently of M&M candies going woke. Well, apparently M&Ms aren’t nearly progressive enough. So says the Washington Post, so it must be true. (Actually the article turns out to be an attack on Mars candy for being so silly, but still, we waste pixels on this?)

The M&M's changes aren't progressive

. . . The great sin here isn't the intent to make people feel included or seen; it's the hypocrisy, and the ham-handedness, too. If I'm buying a pack of candy containing God-knows-what from a multinational conglomerate, I've likely made my peace with their whole deal and would rather them keep their pseudo-progressive piffle to themselves while they loot the planet. They've got a business plan to stick to, and my candy canonically struggling with anxiety won't change that. Just let my chocolates be chocolates.

• More evidence of oppressive Baby Boomer tyranny over our culture (it’s in The Atlantic, so you know it must be super-true):

Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as theworking musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs. . .

The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police. . .

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Notes on the Real Economy

Posted: 24 Jan 2022 01:29 PM PST

(Steven Hayward)

The stock market today opened down sharply—the Dow was off 900 points early in the day—before staging a late rally to close in the green. Still, the last week has been ugly. Strap in for a lot more volatility until the Fed is done finding its rear end with both hands—likely many many months from now.

It is not news that traditional energy stocks—coal, natural gas, and oil—were the stock market’s big winners last year, and so far are holding up well in the current market swoon. This, despite the push of the Biden Administration to destroy the sector, and the successful pressure on the finance community to cut off access to capital for the sector, which has already raised the cost of capital for fossil energy companies. And yet their stocks have thrived anyway, for the simple reason that when nations need energy that works, is scalable, affordable, and available on demand, they are turning back to fossil sources. Pretty fast in fact. (News item: U.S. Coal Stockpiles Near Historic Lows. News item: Oil Bulls Encouraged by Low Inventory.)

I love this chart comparing the electricity sectors in France and Germany yesterday (especially for their all-important “carbon-intensity):

What’s clear here is that Germany’s energiewende has failed.

Meanwhile, guess which energy stocks are not doing so well right now? Barron’s tells us:

Alternative-Energy Stocks Fall as Analyst Cuts Price Targets

. . . Analyst Tristan Richardson said the performance of [alternative] energy stocks in the past few months has been hurt by issues such as a holdup on a vote by California's Public Utilities Commission on proposed changes to how customers with rooftop solar panels get paid when their systems produce more electricity than they use. The derailing of the Build Back Better legislation, which includes tax-credit extensions for the overall alternative-energy group, is an additional problem, he said.

This paragraph makes clear that the prosperity of “green” energy is largely dependent on government subsidies, mandates, and favorable tax treatment. In other words, without government to prop it up, green energy withers quickly, while energy that actually works prospers in the face of government hostility.

Slowly people are going to figure this out.

Meanwhile, I’ve found the very weakest spot in the whole supply chain problem: refrigerated dough. No, really, here’s the chart:

Thank God I’ve hoarded lots of dough in my freezer.
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