Sep
5
2023

You Want Blame? We Got Plenty to Go Around.

Since it's a day ending in "y", it's pretty easy to find a recent reality-challenging quote (by which I mean a "lie") from the most usual of suspects: Biden boasts about cutting deficit — as it soars

President Biden boasted during a Labor Day speech in Philadelphia on Monday that he cut the federal budget deficit — despite the fact that it’s soaring this year.

“Unlike the last president, in my first two years — all this stuff, guess what? — I cut the deficit $1.7 trillion, cut the debt $1.7 trillion,” the 80-year-old president said, conflating the basic budget terms after he touted new infrastructure spending.

Biden wants to claim responsibility for the FY2021-2022 deficit reduction. I'm rolling my eyes. But will he also claim responsibility for the FY2022-2023 deficit doubling? Given his usual confusion about the difference between "the deficit" and "the debt", it's doubtful that he even understands what's going on.

The usual disclaimer: no money goes out the Treasury door without being approved by Congress. So they deserve to come in for abuse too.

And how did those irresponsible clowns get into those positions of power?

Oh, right. Voters. Democracy.

When we're looking to assign blame for our fiscal mess, when are we going to start pointing fingers back at "us"?

Also of note:

  • And Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. David Strom notes that 1984 came later than expected, but it's here: Rewriting history...it works more often than you think. One of the current examples:

    Further comment from Strom:

    Our MSM pulls this same sort of BS all the time on a range of issues. How many clips of reporters denying that there is a shred of evidence that Joe Biden helped his son engage in influence peddling? The Washington Post’s Philip Bump beclowned himself by claiming (again) that there is zero evidence that Joe Biden had anything to do with Hunter’s business, and when pressed left a podcast in a huff. John wrote about it on Friday.

    Rest assured, though, that Bump will continue pushing the lie, and vast numbers of people will continue to believe it because the alternative is confronting a hard truth. How many TV anchors have repeated the same lie that there is no evidence that Biden was deeply involved in his son’s business?

    Eagerly awaiting journalism to happen. Not counting on it.

  • Once a Presidential contender, now he's just a… Jazz Shaw notes that being gay and charismatic only takes one so far: Pete Buttigieg is just a symptom of a vastly larger crisis.

    It is, perhaps, somewhat ironic that we tackle this subject on Labor Day, an occasion when we ostensibly celebrate those who exert themselves and labor to keep the economic machine of our capitalist democracy grinding onward, allowing citizens to contribute to the general advancement of the country while working toward what was historically considered “the American dream.” Those who toil, raise families, build careers, and hope to pass something on to the next generation were traditionally revered. That lifestyle has always included goals that involved eventual home ownership, but we also developed a culture where personal transportation and mobility were critical, leading to a culture where personal car ownership was among those objectives. But now everything has changed. And there is no better example of this than our supposed Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, adopting a position where Americans should be ushered away from owning their own cars, be they gas-driven or even electric. Everyone should be using public transportation as much as possible. Well… not “everyone,” of course. But most certainly you. (Townhall)

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appointed an Obama-era group made up of 24 “leading experts” to advise him on “transportation equity,” claiming the privilege of owning a car ignites “systemic racism” and should be banned because of their negative impact on the environment.

    Members of the Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity include “spatial policy scholar” Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, who says, “All cars are bad” and calls for “zero emission transit.”

    However, she told the Free Beacon that she is not “advocating for a complete erasure” of cars but hopes to convince Buttigieg to re-direct the U.S. from relying on private motor vehicles.

    I have to admit that the "spatial policy scholar" gig sounds pretty sweet.

  • Good news, everyone! The new episodes of Futurama on Hulu vary from "okay" to "great". Yesterday's "Rage Against the Vaccine" was one of the great ones, and (as this recap notes) the targets were:

    global health scares, wonky vaccine mandates, conspiracy theories, new media, and public hysteria

    Something for everyone, in other words. Yes, even in 3023, variants are still a thing, and the latest is "Explovid-23" which is "characterized by light coughing and uncontrollable rage."

    Hey, look at that deficit projection up there again. Who needs a virus to cause uncontrollable rage when we have Twitter?