It’s China’s Fault

March 19th, 2020

Enough with the spin and lies out of the People’s Republic of China. It’s the only nation in the world that bears primary responsibility for spreading the Wuhan coronavirus.

To the degree that we are suffering death and economic hurt from COVID-19, we can also attribute the toll to the Chinese Communist Party. Had it just called in the international medical community in late November, instituted early quarantines, and allowed its own citizens to use email and social media to apprise and warn others of the new disease, then the world and the U.S. would probably not have found themselves in the current panic. The reasons China did not act more responsibly may be inherent in communist governments, or they may involve more Byzantine causes left to be disclosed.

China could have told the truth an nipped the problem in the bud. But China didn’t because truth is not a concept valued by communist regimes. In fact, Chinese scientists destroyed Wuhan coronavirus evidence in December:

Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.

A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.

The detailed revelations by Caixin Global, a respected independent publication, provide the clearest evidence yet of the scale of the cover-up in the crucial early weeks when the opportunity was lost to control the outbreak. Censors have been rapidly deleting the report from the Chinese internet.

Snip.

Ai Fen, director of Wuhan Central Hospital’s emergency department, told Chinese magazine People that a colleague sent her a diagnostic report in late December of a worrying infection that mirrored severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), according to the South China Morning Post.

Ai shared a picture of the report on a WeChat group on December 30, and then its members circulated that photo more widely. Whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, 34, who was silenced by Chinese officials and then died of the COVID-19 virus, was part of that group.

Ai said she also gave hospital authorities a heads-up about the virus.

“I even grabbed our hospital respiratory department director, who happened to be passing my office, and told him that one of his patients was confirmed to have been infected with a SARS-like virus,” Ai said to People magazine, the Post reported….

The next day, Wang Wenyong, who leads infectious disease control at Wuhan’s Jianghan district disease control center, told Wuhan Central hospital to alter a suspected coronavirus report to say that patients were suffering from other illnesses.

Moreover, China is poised to take ruthless advantage of the chaos:

The virus that originated in Wuhan, China poses a double threat to America.

The first is to our health as the virus spreads through the U.S. population. The second is to our economy as more businesses, schools, and events shut down to slow the spread of the contagion.

We must not underestimate the economic threat because the Chinese Communist Party is using the pandemic to achieve its goal of supplanting the United States as the world’s leading economic, diplomatic, and military power.

Sounds unbelievable?

A new report from Horizon Advisory consultants details Beijing’s post-virus strategy—already operational—to leverage the pandemic to seize global market share in key industries, further global dependence on Chinese manufacturing, and reverse efforts in the United States and elsewhere to decouple from the People’s Republic.

“Beijing intends to use the global dislocation and downturn to attract foreign investment, to seize strategic market share and resources—especially those that force dependence, and to proliferate global information systems; to as Chinese sources put it, ‘leap-frog’ industrially, ‘overtake around the corner’ strategically, capture the ‘commanding heights’ globally. Beijing intends to reverse recent U.S. efforts to counteract China’s subversive international presence; at the same time to chip away at U.S.-Europe relations. In other words, Beijing will use COVID-19 to accelerate its long-standing, strategic offensive,” the Horizon report states.

We’re witnessing Beijing’s attempt to scrub its culpability for the pandemic from the world’s memory. Chinese Communist propagandists declare, “China is owed a thank you for buying the world time” and the New York Times dutifully repeats it.

After covering up the novel infection and unleashing it on the world, Beijing’s rulers bought up the world’s supply of protective gear and respirators.

Then they sell these critical goods to Italy while portraying themselves as the heroic humanitarian savior of the world, not unlike a pyromaniac who takes credit for calling the fire department.

Now, as China’s factories come back online at the same time the West’s economies shut down, Beijing sees further opportunity to extend its soft power and tighten its grip on global supply chains.

Amazingly, China’s useful Social Justice Warrior idiots have swarmed out of the woodwork to declare that calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Coronavirus” is somehow racist.

Many of the same leftist tools hurling accusation of racism were also calling it “Chinese Coronavirus” less than two months ago.

The sad thing is that those leftists tools hate President Donald Trump so much they willingly spout Chinese communist propaganda in an attempt to hurt him and anyone who supports him.

China lied and people died. That’s the bottom line.

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Posted in Communism, Social Justice Warriors | 1 Comment »

Coronavirus Gut-Punches Austin Restaurants

March 18th, 2020

The Wuhan Coronavirus hits Austin right in its artisanal hipster belly:

Austin on Tuesday joined other major Texas cities in closing bars and restaurant dining rooms to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now resulted in the state’s first death.

Dr. Mark Escott, director of Austin-Travis County Health Authority, also announced that pubic gatherings in the Texas capital are now limited to 10 people, following recommendations released a day earlier by the Trump administration. That’s more restrictive than similar measures taken in Dallas, which on Monday ordered that public gatherings should not exceed 50 people.

Those shutdowns are scheduled to last through May 1st. “Food establishments must now close common dining areas and are encouraged to give take-out, delivery or drive-thru options.”

Six weeks is a long damn time for a restaurant or bar owner, many of whom just barely scrape by. I wonder how many restaurants and bars this will drive into bankruptcy.

Williamson County has issued a decree limiting crowd sizes to 50 for the next eight weeks.

With all these draconian bans coming down, do you think the city of Austin will do anything about the illegal encampments of transient drug users Mayor Steve Adler has lured here?

I’m betting not…

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Coronavirus: The Bullshit Overreaction Phase

March 17th, 2020

I was not on the “oh don’t panic the Wuhan coronavirus is just the flu” bus. It’s a real pandemic with, as far as we can tell, a death rate about ten times that of the flu. People are dropping dead at an alarming rate in Italy. It’s real, it’s deadly, and a lot of the government reactions to it (the China travel ban, the emergency declaration) made sense. I believe in flattening the curve, no matter how many unknown variables there.

Now we’re well past the “making sense” part of the pandemic and onto the “bullshit overreaction and power-grab” portion of the pandemic.

  • Item the First: “Illinois mayor signs executive order granting power to ban sale of guns and alcohol while addressing coronavirus.” Two things that have absofriginglutely nothing to do with infectious diseases and everything to do with Champaign, Illinois Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen’s power grab.
  • Item the Second: The entire San Francisco area is essentially going into lockdown.

    Officials in seven San Francisco Bay Area counties issued a sweeping shelter-in-place mandate Monday affecting about 7 million people, ordering residents to stay at home and go outside only for food, medicine and outings that are absolutely essential.

    The order says residents must stay inside and venture out only for necessities for three weeks starting Tuesday in a desperate attempt by officials to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

    How this is compatible with American constitutional rights is not explained. Also, what do you want to bet that absolutely nothing will be done to clear out San Francisco’s huge population of mentally addicted drug addicts shitting in the streets despite the fact that COVID-19 can likely be transmitted by fecal matter?

  • Item the Third: The tri-state area (New York, Connecticut, New Jersey) is shutting down bars, restaurants and movie theaters. “Restaurants can remain open for take-out and delivery only — and the state is allowing eateries to include booze in to-go orders.”
  • Item the Fourth: Houston and Dallas are doing much the same thing.

    • Hey, remember back in January when Democrats were slamming President Donald Trump for banning all flights from China as an overreaction?

    Good times, good times…

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    Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for March 16, 2020

    March 16th, 2020

    Between almost everyone dropping out, Biden continuing to rack up victories, and the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic, almost all the air has been sucked out of the Democratic Presidential race. So this is going to be a relatively short and subdued Democratic Presidential clown car update.

    Delegates

    Right now the delegate count stands at:

    1. Joe Biden 885
    2. Bernie Sanders 732
    3. Elizabeth Warren 72
    4. Michael Bloomberg 61
    5. Pete Buttigieg 26
    6. Amy Klobuchar 7
    7. Tulsi Gabbard 2

    Polls

    Eh, not posting any individual polls this week, as Biden is stomping Sanders in every single one of them, usually by just shy of a 2-1 ratio. The closest thing to a surprise is that Hill/Harris X has Gabbard at 5% nationally, which suggests that 4% is the level of “Operation Chaos”-type effects.

  • Real Clear Politics polls.
  • 538 poll average.
  • Election betting markets. Biden’s first at a whopping 87.3%. However, second place is not Sanders, it’s Hillary at 5.1%. (strokes chin)(stops)(washes hands annoyingly long period of time) (strokes chin again)

    • Pundits, etc.

  • Biden won Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and Washington (where results were close), while Sanders won South Dakota.
  • Coronavirus is one of the topics that dominated last night’s Biden-Sanders debate, as well it should, as both Biden and Sanders are part of the target demographic most likely to drop dead of it. Plus coronavirus provides Biden the perfect excuse to run the first “front porch” campaign since Warren G. Harding.
  • Liveblog of the Biden-Sanders debate.
  • Another one from 538.
  • Older Democrats and blacks may have pushed Biden over the top, but young and Hispanic Democrats are going socialist:

    The electoral patterns in Texas, which Biden narrowly won, were marked by divisions of age and ethnicity. Voters over 65 went for Biden nearly four to one, according to Washington Post exit polls. By contrast, among voters under 30, Sanders cleaned up, beating Biden 59 percent to 13 percent. African-Americans, who constitute 20 percent of the state’s electorate, gave nearly three-fifths of their votes to Biden, almost four times Sanders’s share. Carroll Robinson, who served on the Houston City Council for six years and is chairman of the Coalition of Black Democrats, notes that Sanders failed to connect, particularly with older black voters; he cites in particular his being the only major candidate not to attend the 55th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma as reflective of his “signaling problem” with African-American voters.

    Black voters, Robinson notes, were critical to Biden’s small margin of victory, boosting his totals in Harris County, which includes Houston, and in Dallas County. In contrast, Latinos, already roughly one-third of the state’s Democratic voters, voted heavily for Sanders. The Vermont senator won roughly 40 percent of Latino voters, compared with about a quarter who opted for Biden. Sanders won easily in heavily Latino Bexar (San Antonio), Hidalgo (the Rio Grande Valley), and El Paso Counties.

    Sanders also appealed to younger voters in Texas, as elsewhere, beating Biden among voters under 30—making up some 15 percent of the electorate—by almost four to one. He won hugely in Austin, the state’s epicenter of millennial culture, with its high concentration of tech workers. Sanders easily took Travis County over Biden, 83,000 to 52,000.

    Moderate Texas Democrats can take heart in halting the momentum of a socialist candidate, but the broader trend is against them. According to exit polls, some 56 percent of Texas Democrats view socialism favorably. In Houston, voters elected an inexperienced 27-year-old progressive, Lina Hidalgo, as judge of Harris County in 2018. Despite its title, the role is nonjudicial; Hidalgo is actually the chief executive of the nation’s third most-populous county. This year, Christian Menefee, a young social-justice advocate, won the primary for Harris County Attorney over more mainstream opposition, on a platform of progressive criminal-justice reform. “There’s an incipient change among the grassroots activists,” notes Bill White, former Houston mayor and deputy energy secretary under Bill Clinton. “There’s a whole new group who are very anti-establishment and gaining influence.” White suspects that the ascendency of these forces may just be beginning. Sanders and Warren—before she dropped out of the race on Thursday—enjoyed a combined 40 percent support of the Texas Democratic electorate, running strongest among the fastest-growing demographic groups.

    This leftward transformation is even further along in California. As Morley Winograd, a longtime Democratic activist and former aide to Al Gore, suggests, the state is not only “unique politically, but also big enough to have its own weather system. Democrats in the state feel the economy is strong enough to allow it to maintain its current high-tax, high regulation environment without causing a major downturn.” Socialism remains in vogue. At last year’s state party convention, when former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, then a presidential aspirant, suggested that “socialism is not the answer,” he was lustily booed.

    As in Texas, Sanders won biggest among Latinos and millennials, who represent the party’s future. He won an astounding 55 percent of Latino voters, according to New York Times exit polls, compared with a mere 21 percent for Biden. He won 72 percent of voters under 30 and 57 percent of voters in the 30-to-44 age range, beating Biden by wide margins. Biden did win older voters and among African-Americans, but blacks constitute only 7 percent of the state’s Democratic electorate, barely a third of their Texas share.

  • You may have wondered “With everyone else out, will Tulsi Gabbard start picking up protest votes?” Looking at the various vote totals, the answer appears to be “No.” She does not appear to have broken 1% in any state last week.
  • Here’s a piece that argues that Cory Booker could have been the nominee if only he hadn’t taken that hard-left turn. There’s a bit of truth to it, but Booker was already looking a little goofy before the pandering began, and primaries are littered with candidates who looked formidable on paper.
  • Bloomberg last month: Oh sure, I’m going to pay you campaign staffers through the end of the year whether I stay in or not. Bloomberg this month: Psych!
  • Heh:

    • Now on to the clown car itself (or what’s left of it):

  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. We need to talk about Joe Biden:

    Joe Biden is clearly not well. The comeback front-runner for the Democratic nomination hasn’t lost a step; he’s lost the plot. You’re not supposed to diagnose or psychoanalyze people from afar, I know. It is rude. Having any conversation about the frailty of an elderly public figure always feels rude. Such conversations are difficult to have even about elderly family members, behind closed doors.

    But this subject needs to be broached right now. Accusations that Hillary Clinton was unwell were treated as a conspiracy theory up until the moment she seemed to collapse at a 9/11 memorial and was pushed into the side of a van like a sack of meat. Though that viral clip surely hurt Clinton, it was a one-day story and she performed reasonably well on the campaign trail afterward. Biden is amassing a series of viral clips that are much worse. He’ll forget the name of former president Barack Obama, or the state he’s in, or stock phrases of American oratory: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women created by . . . you know . . . you know the thing.” He’ll announce to a baffled crowd that “I’m Joe Biden’s husband and I work for Cedric Richmond” (Richmond is a congressman, in case you were wondering.)

    Yes, we need to make room for verbal slip-ups among people who are tirelessly barnstorming around the country and giving public speeches. But any look at a video of Biden in a previous campaign for president shows that the former vice president has diminished.

    I assume you saw my piece on Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. Speaking of which, welcome to the 21st century, Joe:

    For some damn reason, Biden decided that he needed to put Beto O’Rourke’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon in charge of his campaign. Certainly the lackluster Biden campaign has needed a shakeup for a long time (current run of success notwithstanding), but why you’d hire the person who couldn’t even get their candidate to the primary is beyond me. (Who he should be hiring is Buttigieg’s head of fundraising.) In the debate, Biden promised to pick a woman as Veep, which is exactly the sort of pander you expect of Democrats these days:

    James Clyburn and James Carville say the quiet part out loud, that debates should be shut down so Biden doesn’t embarass himself. Thanks to the Wuhan Coronavirus, Biden’s fundraising is now being done on the intertubes. Also: “According to campaign finance records, Biden raised $11 million immediately after his South Carolina primary win and $7 million following his Super Tuesday victories. The victories helped alleviate some of the campaign’s money woes, but it’s unclear how a ban on actual campaign events and fundraisers may impact his ability to raise money.” Those are good but not out-of-the-park numbers. He got endorsed by the NEA. Also endorsed by Andrew Yang. Joe Biden’s “bioethics advisor” (and ObamaCare architect) Ezekiel Emanuel wants people to die at age 75 (i.e., younger than Biden is now).

    What about simple stuff? Flu shots are out. Certainly if there were to be a flu pandemic, a younger person who has yet to live a complete life ought to get the vaccine or any antiviral drugs.

    A big challenge is antibiotics for pneumonia or skin and urinary infections. Antibiotics are cheap and largely effective in curing infections. It is really hard for us to say no. Indeed, even people who are sure they don’t want life-extending treatments find it hard to refuse antibiotics. But, as Osler reminds us, unlike the decays associated with chronic conditions, death from these infections is quick and relatively painless. So, no to antibiotics.

    I’m sure that will go over great with Biden’s core of supporters…

  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Does Tulsi have any chance in the race? I could say “if both Biden and Bernies keeled over dead,” but even then I would expect someone like Warren or Bloomberg to jump back into the race and do better than Gabbard. She goes full Andrew Yang in calling for a Universal Basic Income, which should douse any remain fires for her on the right. “Tulsi Gabbard Says Her Sick Friend and Three Others Were Denied Coronavirus Testing in Hawaii.” Interesting (especially since Democrats absolutely dominate Hawaii), but rather peripheral to the race.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. By and large, women don’t like Bernie. “Bernie Bros warn of ‘massive exodus’ if Democrats nominate Joe Biden.” Well, they would. But some said the same in 2016, and a “massive exodus” was not apparent. “Just Like Socialism, Bernie’s Campaign Collapsed Under Its Own Contradictions:

    What can only be characterized, at best, as an election-year makeover campaign began to fall apart on Feb. 23 in an interview Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes.” Among other things, Sanders stated: “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?”

    Right afterward, Sanders doubled down, which was really his only play, lest he come off as a flip-flopper. Despite his proclamation “Truth is truth,” his point wasn’t clear. Does improved literacy that occurred in the context of indoctrinating the population in communist ideology redeem Cuba in any way? Should the United States become more like such countries? Ultimately, these remarks went nowhere, perhaps because there wasn’t anywhere to go but down.

    Again, these remarks aren’t new and are entirely consistently with Sanders’ history. But, as even left-wing Vox conceded, it made for a bad look: “The other read, though, is more in line with Sanders’ past. Time after time, he has apologized for the actions of brutal left-wing dictatorships from Cuba to Nicaragua to the Soviet Union, partly out of a critique of America’s meddling in these countries but also – some argue – because of his ideological sympathies toward them.”

    In a single interview, Sanders may’ve forever demolished the effort to convince the American electorate the 78-year-old career politician is a perfectly benign “democratic socialist” and not the hard-left socialist he’s always been.

    Bernie’s ceiling shows that the limits of socialism in America, even among Democrats:

    Sure, socialism carries much less of a stigma in Democratic politics than it did a decade ago. Polling continually indicates that America’s young people have a much more positive attitude toward socialism than their parents and grandparents did. But that is a separate question from whether an openly socialist candidate can win elections — though it is worth noting that the two biggest Democratic Socialists of America victories in 2018 came from the wins of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib in the Democratic primaries of deep-blue House districts.

    The response of the rest of the party to Sanders’s rise proved illuminating. Democrats feared that a 2020 cycle with Sanders atop the ticket would risk their House majority, destroy them in swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania, and obliterate them in red states.

    In theory, socialism is supposed to appeal to the working class, including the white working class, which drifted toward Trump in 2016. But on Super Tuesday, Joe Biden ran ahead of Sanders among white non–college graduates in the states that Biden won, and the former vice president largely kept it close among this demographic in the states that Sanders won.

    Bernie doesn’t let facts get in the way of True Belief:

    • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti.
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet (Dropped out February 11, 2020)
    li>Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Dropped out March 4, 2020 and endorsed Biden)

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker (Dropped out January 11, 2020)
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock (Dropped out December 2, 2019)
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (Dropped out March 1, 2020 and endorsed Biden)
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro (Dropped out January 2, 2020)
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Stated again and again she’s not running, but there’s still a cottage industry in predicting she’ll displace Biden at the DNC or be the veep pick. Not really seeing either, but stranger things have happened this year…
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney (Dropped Out January 31, 2020)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • California Senator Kamala Harris (Dropped out December 3, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.(Dropped out March 2, 2020 and endorsed Biden.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (Dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: (Dropped out November 20, 2019)
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (Dropped out November 1, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (Dropped out February 12, 2020)
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan (Dropped out October 24, 2019)
  • Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak (Dropped out December 1, 2019)
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer. (Dropped out February 29, 20020)
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. (Dropped out March 5, 2020)
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson (Dropped out January 10, 2020)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang (Dropped out February 11, 2020, later endorsed Biden)

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    Norm Macdonald on the Coronavirus

    March 15th, 2020

    Hot off the tubes, here’s a Norm Macdonald standup bit on the coronavirus.

    And given the words “Norm Macdonald” and “standup” should let you know it’s NSFW.

    “Funny how Big Pharm is evil until now!”

    “The last step between us and happiness anyway were people.”

    Evidently it took the near-end of the world for Norm to come back and do a standup set…

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    Democrat Andrew Gillum Busted Over Suspected Gay Meth Orgy

    March 14th, 2020

    The “Andrew Gillum,” “Busted” and “Meth” parts of that headline are all spelled out on the police report, whereas the “gay orgy” part is only suspected.

    Candace Owens, the conservative activist and founder of #Blexit, a campaign that encourages black voters to leave the Democratic Party, dropped a bombshell Friday on social media.

    According to Owens, who included screenshots of what appears to be a Miami Beach Police Department report, Florida’s 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum “was involved in a crystal meth overdose incident.”

    An incident that allegedly took place in a Miami hotel, where Owens said an orgy was “suspected, but unconfirmed.”

    “Removing one page of report that had @AndrewGillum’s personal address listed which was wasn’t my intent— but YES— BREAKING: Democrat Andrew Gillum was involved in a crystal meth overdose incident last night in a Miami hotel. Orgy suspected, but unconfirmed,” she tweeted.

    You may remember Gillum from such hits as “I’m not going to be governor of Florida despite George Soros and Tom Steyer’s money” and “I just paid a $5,000 campaign violation fine.”

    Let’s repeat that the “gay orgy” part is only suspected, while the “busted for crystal meth” part is confirmed. It’s entirely possibly that three men just showed up the same hotel room at the same time merely to smoke crystal meth, and not to have a gay sex orgy.

    Gillum, of course, denies everything. Drunk at a wedding, went to assist a friend, yadda yadda. The usual “veneer of plausibility” story no one believes.

    Personally, I feel that a juicy Democratic politician gay meth orgy scandal is exactly what America needs to distract it from all the Wuhan Coronavirus gloom.

    And now some tweets:

    Update: BOOM! Confirmation: “Man busted with Andrew Gillum in hotel room with meth was gay escort.” (Hat tip: Andy Ngo.)

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for March 13, 2020

    March 13th, 2020

    Happy Friday the 13th! This is the world we’re living in now:

  • President Donald Trump imposes 30 day ban on travel from Europe, based on Coronavrus fears. Doesn’t include the UK.
  • Prescient Trump:

    From the outset of Donald Trump’s entry into the world of politics he espoused a series of key tenets around what he called his “America-First” objectives:

    1. The U.S. needed to have control over our borders, and a greater ability to control who was migrating to the United States. A shift toward stopping ‘illegal’ migration.
    2. The U.S. needed to stop the manufacture of goods overseas and return critical manufacturing back to the United States. A return to economic independence.
    3. The U.S. needed to decouple from an over-reliance on Chinese industrial and consumer products. China viewed as a geopolitical and economic risk.

    Donald Trump was alone on these issues. No-one else was raising them; no-one else was so urgently pushing that discussion. In 2015, 2016 and even 2017, no-one other than Trump was talking about how close we were to the dependence point of no return.

    Given the status of very consequential issues stemming from the Chinese Coronavirus threat; and the myriad of serious issues with critical supply chain dependencies; wasn’t President Trump correct in his warnings and proposals?

  • The NCAA Basketball tournament has been cancelled.
  • They say the neon lights are out on Broadway.
  • MLB opening delayed two weeks.
  • The idea driving this is not to stop all transmission of coronavirus (nice though that would be), but to flatten the curve so that American health care resources are not overwhelmed.
  • Coronavirus and the joys of National Health Service.
  • In Italy, you can say goodbye to Grandma. “Doctors are being told that they’ll likely need to deny care to senior citizens and those with other health conditions as the virus explodes across the nation.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Norway shuts down.
  • Ireland locks down.
  • School’s! Out! For! Well, early Spring at least, in Houston ISD.
  • “Report: Hassan Nasrallah Infected with Coronavirus.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…
  • Remember: It’s the “Wuhan Coronavirus”:

  • Coronavirus: A timeline.
  • Ex Jon: Don’t panic.
  • “Nation’s Nerds Wake Up In Utopia Where Everyone Stays Inside, Sports Are Canceled, Social Interaction Forbidden.”
  • “Parents Worried They’ll Have To Raise Their Own Children As Government Schools Shut Down.”
  • Nice try, China.

  • “U.S. Companies in China Were Struggling Before Coronavirus.”

    Before the coronavirus epidemic, U.S. companies were heading for record-low profitability in China as business conditions deteriorated and China’s economy slowed to its lowest rate in decades, according to a new survey of U.S. companies with operations in China…

    American companies surveyed by AmCham reported their lowest levels of profitability since the Chamber first began asking the question 18 years ago: 61% of members described their 2019 financial performance as profitable or very profitable, an eight-percentage point drop from the year before.

  • “In Warning Sign for Democrats, New Florida Poll Shows Trump Making Inroads Among Key Dem Voting Blocs.” 45%+ among Hispanics and 18%+ among blacks.
  • “Former UAW President Gary Jones Charged in Union Embezzlement Scandal.”

    He is charged with embezzling more than $1 million in union funds and properties to buy “luxury condos” in California, “lavish” dinners with “premium liquor,” five sets of custom-made golf clubs, horseback riding on a beach, and other non-union expenses that prosecutors allege the UAW covered up by mislabeling them as payments to vendors or meals for UAW officials, according to Matthew Schneider, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

  • Florida man convicted of scamming more than $2 million from a Fort Worth school district in a spearphising attack.
  • DOJ/DEA announce arrest of over 600 alleged cartel members as part of Project Python.

    No, not that Python

  • Uncle Sam brings the hammer down again against Iranian backed militias in Iraq.
  • “Saudi Arabia arrests 3 members of royal family in alleged coup plot.” If they’re anything like the other royal family members arrested on behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, this is probably good news.
  • Twitter verifies congressional candidate that doesn’t exist.
  • I don’t follow any of the singing competition TV shows, but, well:

  • Interesting essay on Chuck Leavell, the road keyboardist and musical director for the Rolling Stones.
  • Max von Sydow loses his chess game. He was in lots of fine films, perhaps none better than The Exorcist.
  • Alex Jones framed by reptoids arrested for DWI. But another report has him blowing under 0.8 BAC, which would suggest he can get the charges dismissed.
  • Social Justice Warriors slam University of Wisconsin for honoring basketball player who happens to be white. Because black people are so underrepresented in basketball…
  • Heh:

  • “Ignorant Boomer Shares CNN Article Thinking It’s Real.”
  • Attack of the hungry monkeys:

    Sadly, Troy Hurtubise is no longer around to design a monkey-proof suit…

  • Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof:

    • Let’s be careful out there…

    Update: “Austin Public Health has received two presumptive positive cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Austin-Travis County. These are the first cases to be confirmed in the area.” Not community spread.

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military | 2 Comments »

    Texas Coronavirus Update for March 12, 2020

    March 12th, 2020

    Everyone and their dog is doing a Wuhan coronavirus roundup, so let’s make this update Texas-specific (which may make it easier to get into the other roundups).

  • There are currently 19 reported cases in Texas, 13 of those in the Houston area.
  • This New York Times map says 33 cases, which presumably includes foreign and cruise ship evacuees in quarantine at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
  • Fortunately, Texas is one of the most prepared states.
  • The already-in-progress Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was closed early at 4 PM yesterday instead of running through March 22.
  • There are a bunch of people on Twitter saying they’ll just attend the Greenpoint carnival instead of the rodeo. Which is like saying that, instead of seeing Avengers: Endgame in IMAX, you’re going to go home and watch a VHS of the Roger Corman Fantastic Four on your 13″ tube TV.
  • The SXSW music, film and tech festival have been cancelled. On the plus side, this will keep some people from seeing the drug-addicted transients Mayor Steve Adler and the City Council have lured to Austin streets, a health and safety concern all their own.
  • For now, Rodeo Austin is still on, but that could change.
  • Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion Music Festival is also currently scheduled to occur.
  • Austin Independent School District has banned travel to hard-hit states, including “California, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington and Utah.”
  • There are at least 10 testing centers around the state.
  • The NBA season has been suspended, including the three Texas teams (Rockets, Mavericks and Spurs).
  • A lot of Texas universities have extended spring break and started planning for teaching online.

    • Stay safe out there…

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    Posted in Austin, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Biden: Hide the (Cognitive) Decline

    March 11th, 2020

    Dubbed “Slow Joe” or “Sundown Joe,” there’s been an awful lot of discussion of Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline.

    One or two senior moments on the campaign trail wouldn’t have hurt him (mainly because of the (D) after his name). But it’s not one or two a campaign, it’s one or two an appearance, it’s mistakes seguing into non-sequiturs seguing into a buffet of word salads.

  • “Biden’s handlers limited his exposure to speaking for a few minutes at each event.”
  • Chance the Gardener for President.

    But Joe, despite his diminishing mental competence that leads him to make increasingly bizarre statements, some of which make little or no sense, is not quite Chauncey Gardener.

    The original Chance was a sweet innocent. Biden always was an ambitious type with a dubious past. He has been a repeat plagiarist, even in law school.

    Nevertheless, something cruel, even sadistic, emanates from the nomination of someone either over or on the edge of senility. Considering how Joe is now, think how he will be in two or three years in the midst of his presidency.

    The potential for public humiliation is high, as is the necessity to surround him with “advisors” to prop him up to avoid catastrophe.

    But that may be the point. A particularly mediocre group of candidates failed, but will get a second chance.

    Some are asking how the likes of Corey Booker and Kamala Harris—both of whom had absolutely terrible things to say about Biden during the debates; Harris even implied he was a bigot—suddenly are lining up behind Joe as if he were the man anointed to unite a ruptured America.

    Part of this is undoubtedly that they sense a vacuum to be filled. Nobody’s home. There’s no “there” in “Being There” and someone—Booker, Harris, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, any of a number of people—will be calling the shots in reality from behind the scenes.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Last year in a debate, Biden claimed that “my deceased wife is a teacher,” conflating Neilia Hunter Biden, who died tragically young from a car accident at age 30 in 1972 and wasn’t (as far as I can determine) a teacher, with his very-much-still-living second wife Jill Jacobs Biden, who is a teacher.
  • And there’s just no shortage of video evidence out there:

  • This was just yesterday:

  • If Biden is bad now, what is he going to be like three years from now?

    • But the corrupt wing of the Democratic Party seems intent on denying Bernie Sanders the nomination at any cost, and Joe Biden is the vehicle they’ve chosen to do it. They also seem to feel that Biden’s cognitive decline won’t be an issue once in office, as they’ll have their own hand-picked people in the veep spot and important cabinet positions. But that assumes President Donald Trump won’t shred Biden in the general, that they can somehow keep Trump from ripping into Biden’s obvious declining faculties. Dangerous assumptions all around…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, video | 1 Comment »

    Tucker Carlson on The Threat From China

    March 10th, 2020

    Some bracing observations on the threat the Wuhan coronavirus poses, and the even bigger threat outsourcing our manufacturing to China poses to the United States:

    “While the rest of us were arguing about sexism and transgendered bathrooms, China took control of the healthcare system.”

    “As of tonight, more than 95% of the antibiotics in America are manufactured in communist China.”

    Parts of this are slightly overstated. There are manufacturing industries that America still dominates (semiconductor manufacturing equipment among them), but Carson is correct in that China’s control of large portions of our essential supply chain represents a serious strategic threat.

    (Hat tip: Charles Glasser on Instapundit.)

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    Posted in Communism, Economics, Foreign Policy, video | No Comments »

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