Posted on May 21, 2024 by Scott Johnson in Books, History, Joe Biden

Quotations from Chairman Joe

In 1968 Simon & Schuster published Quotations From Chairman LBJ — in the form of Quotations From Chairman Mao (“The Little Red Book”). The cover depicted President Johnson in a Mao jacket. With thirty chapters on varying subjects, the book was “translated” (compiled) by Jack Shepherd and Christopher Wren. I still have my copy. It leads with this epigraph attributed to “Chairman Johnson”: “Don’t spit in the soup. We’ve all got to eat.”

It’s a shame that commercial publishers have lost their appetite for mocking Democratic presidents. They provide so much material deserving of mockery. President Biden gives us new material every day, much of it related to the sunset of his mind in the foggy ruins of time.

Twenty-four hours in Bidenworld gave us two entries that would vie for entry in the senility chapter of Quotations From Chairman Joe. First: “Biden says maimed American Hersh Goldberg-Polin is ‘here with us today’ at Rose Garden party — despite still being held by Hamas.” Stand up, Hersh!

Second: “Biden bizarrely suggests he was VP during pandemic in latest blunder.” (He meant “recession.”)

Posted on by Scott Johnson in 2024 Election, Higher education, Joe Biden

The worst commencement speech

The White House has posted two May 19 transcripts of “remarks by President Biden at a campaign event” (here, at CRED Café, and here, at Huntington Bank Convention Center). The White House should have listed a third — Remarks by President Biden at the Morehouse College Class of 2024 Commencement Address.

In view of Biden’s office as President and his audience of black college graduates, it may be the worst commencement speech ever given in the United States. It is full of lies about the White House, about the prevalence of racism in the United States, about the obstacles to black achievement, and so on. As a campaign speech, it was full of the traditional Biden demagogy. For example:

We’re delivering affordable high-speed Internet so no child has to sit in their parents’ car or do their homework in a parking lot outside of McDonald’s.

Instead of forcing you to prove you’re 10 times better, we’re breaking down doors so you have 100 times more opportunities: good-paying jobs you can raise a family on in your neighborhood — (applause); capital to start small business and loans to buy homes; health insurance, prescriptions drugs, housing that’s more affordable and accessible.

He bragged about his lawlessness in buying votes with our money:

I’m relieving the burden of student debt — many of you have already had the benefit of it — (applause) — so I [you] can chase your dreams and grow the economy.

When the Supreme Court told me I couldn’t, I found two other ways to do it. (Applause.) And we were able to do it, because it grows the economy.

To put it charitably, he encapsulated his ambivalence and confusion about Israel’s struggle against a genocidal enemy:

That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire — an immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting — (applause) — bring the hostages home. And I’ve been working on a deal as we speak, working around the clock to lead an international effort to get more aid into Gaza, rebuild Gaza.

Analyze this:

But let’s be clear what happens to you and your family when old ghosts in new garments seize power, extremists come for the freedoms you thought belonged to you and everyone.

Today in Georgia, they won’t allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election. What in the hell is that all about? (Applause.) I’m serious. Think about it. And then the constant attacks on Black election workers who count your vote.

Insurrectionists who storm the Capitol with Confederate flags are called “patriots” by some. Not in my house. (Applause.) Black police officers, Black veterans protecting the Capitol were called another word, as you’ll recall.

They also say out loud, these other groups, immigrants “poison the blood” of our country, like the Grand Wizard and fascists said in the past. But you know and I know we all bleed the same color. In America, we’re all created equal. (Applause.)

Extremists close the doors of opportunity; strike down affirmative action; attack the values of diversity, equality, and inclusion.

When it comes to the “diversity” regime, some are more equal than others. Speaking of “extremism,” Biden condemned the “extremists” on the the Supreme Court who ruled last year against legalized discrimination and in favor of equal treatment for all in higher education.

Did he mention that “they’re going to put y’all back in chains”? He didn’t need to.

How inspirational can you get? This inspirational:

[G]raduates, this is what we’re up against: extremist forces aligned against the meaning and message of Morehouse. And they peddle a fiction, a caricature what being a man is about — tough talk, abusing power, bigotry. Their idea of being a man is toxic. I ran into them all the time when I was younger. They got — all right, I don’t want to get started. (Laughter.)

Beau Biden made the obligatory cameo appearance.

For a cosmetic treatment of this speech that verges on the comic, see Laura Egan’s Politico story. if this wasn’t the worst commencement speech in American history, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Biden Foreign Policy, Iran

Moms Mabley, phone home

Iranian president — the late Iranian president — Ebrahim Raisi suffered a hard landing on Sunday. May he rot in hell. He was a murderous bastard, a personification of the evil of the Iranian regime, and an enemy of the United States.

Raisi’s nickname was “the butcher of Tehran.” No one thought he didn’t earn it fairly. Under Raisi, Iran armed and assisted terrorists with American blood on their hands. Dr. Sheila Nazarian explains why she will shed no tears over his death in this Newsweek column.

It isn’t difficult to find reliable reports of Iranians celebrating his death. The celebrations were modulated by the survival of the regime.

Hearing of Raisi’s death, my thoughts ran back to Moms Mabley’s joke about her late husband: “I was always taught never to say anything about the dead unless it’s good. He’s dead. Good!” It is to be hoped that Raisi’s hard landing is a leading indicator of the fate of the Iranian regime.

That isn’t quite how the Biden administration sees it. They want to make nice with the ayatollahs. Yesterday the State Department issued this statement: “The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran. As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

White House spokesman John Kirby downplayed the expression of condolences as “a typical practice.”

Kirby also took up — how to put it? — the downside of Raisi:

[H]e’s responsible for the support that Iran provides — or he was responsible for the support that Iran provided terrorist networks throughout the region, which obviously led to — the support that he’d given Hamas led to the slaughter of 1,200 innocent Israeli people on the 7th of October.

No question this was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands. That said, as we would in any other case, we certainly regret in general the loss of life, and offered official condolences as appropriate.

Well, thanks.

They should have looked to the first President Bush on the death of Khomeni: “The official Iranian news agency has confirmed the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini. With his passing, we hope Iran will now move toward assuming a responsible role in the international community.”

One might see in the State Department expression of condolences on Raisi’s death a case of mixed-up confusion. When it comes to Senate Chaplain Barry Black, we have undiluted disgrace.

The New York Post rounds up the company we keep in “US State Department, NATO, UN criticized for offering condolences to Iran over dead ‘Butcher of Tehran.’”

Posted on May 20, 2024 by John Hinderaker in Crime, Democrats, Minnesota

Feeding Our Bank Accounts: The Swag

We have reported many times on the Feeding Our Future scandal here in Minnesota. Minnesota’s Department of Education allowed taxpayers to be defrauded of somewhere between $250 million and $500 million in programs that ostensibly were intended to feed poor children during covid.

Of course, if you did the math, there aren’t that many poor children in Minnesota, and the facilities whose operators got the money couldn’t possibly have fed the many thousands of kids for whom they claimed reimbursement. The fraud was open and obvious.

The real moral of the story is that Democrats are not actually opposed to the government being defrauded. They think that the purpose of government is to take money from some and give it to others–i.e., the ones who vote for them. If hundreds of millions are obtained by fraud, so what? The dollars went to their friends and supporters. In the Democrats’ eyes, there is little difference between legitimate social welfare payments to qualified claimants and outright theft. Which, now that I think of it, should tell you something.

My colleague Bill Glahn has driven reporting on the Feeding Our Future scandal from the beginning. (As you can imagine, conventional news outlets would rather not.) Currently, the first batch of FOF criminal defendants are on trial in federal court in Minneapolis. Bill has been following the proceedings closely. On Friday he reported on some of the sensational evidence being presented to the jury:

As we close out another week of the trial in Minneapolis, prosecutors have featured many of the (alleged) ill-gotten gains of the free-food scheme.

A survey of recent headlines:

‘The next multi-millionaires will be you and me’ • Minnesota Reformer. Mentions a $975,000 house in Prior Lake.

Champagne in the Maldives — Sahan Journal.

Jurors in the Feeding Our Future fraud trial were shown pictures Monday of a person popping a champagne bottle at a private beach resort in the Maldives, and images of a Porsche, a Tesla, and a newly built apartment complex in Kenya.

The Sahan Journal is a newspaper that serves the Somali community here, and has done some good reporting on the scandal. A large majority of the FOF criminal defendants are Somalis. But it was also Somalis who tried to blow the whistle on the massive fraud when state authorities didn’t want to hear about it.

FBI agent shows Feeding Our Future jury cash, gold jewelry, luxury cars seized.

Wads of $64,000 in cash, gold jewelry from Dubai and a brand new Tesla and Porsche.

Fraud: it is good work, if you can get it. Of course, the defendants don’t admit that they were engaged in fraud. They say they actually fed some kids, and were just good capitalists with a profit margin of more than 90%. The government says they put in for ten times the number of meals they actually provided, which would explain the luxury properties, the overseas trips, the jewels and hot cars, etc.

What will the jury make of it? It will be interesting to see. A Minneapolis jury might acquit regardless of the evidence. However, the federal court in Minneapolis draws jurors from a much larger geographic area, and the jurors may not all be Democrats. So there is hope for the taxpayers.

Posted on by John Hinderaker in International Law, Israel, Left-wing prosecutors, Leftism

Yer Under Arrest!

As Scott noted briefly this morning, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The prosecutor says there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that they “bear criminal responsibility” for Israeli war crimes beginning on October 8, 2023. The fact that the prosecutor also seeks arrest warrants against top Hamas terrorists, now hiding in tunnels under Rafah, simply confirms the absurdity of his request as to the Israeli officials.

I have no insight into whether the ICC will rubber-stamp the prosecutor’s request. If issued, arrest warrants could have reasonably serious consequences. The Wall Street Journal (link above) reports:

If granted by the court, arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant could further complicate Israel’s ability to fight the war. Israel would likely face challenges when trying to import weapons, and Netanyahu and Gallant would also face the prospect of arrest if they visit most countries aside from the U.S., which isn’t under the court’s jurisdiction. It could diminish Israel’s standing on the world stage by shrinking the spheres in which they can operate.

This news has not gone over well in the U.S. Joe Biden, to his credit, railed against the prosecutor, condemning his action as “outrageous.” Republican lawmakers are going farther. Elise Stefanik wants sanctions against the ICC:

“The ICC is an illegitimate court that equivocates a peaceful nation protecting its right to exist with radical terror groups that commit genocide,” Stefanik (R-NY) told The Post.

“Congress must pass my bill with Congressman Chip Roy, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, that will punish those in the ICC that made this baseless undemocratic decision.”

Punish the ICC how?

Stefanik and Roy (R-Texas), responding to reports that the warrants would be sought, introduced the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act to revoke visas for ICC officials who investigate or prosecute US officials or American allies.

The bill also revokes visas for any other ICC employees or their immediate family members acting on behalf of such an investigation or prosecution.

How much of a threat is that? I don’t know, but it is something. More significant is Stefanik’s denunciation of the ICC as “illegitimate.” That is pretty much the official American view, since we, along with Israel, are not among the 123 countries who have signed up as members of the Court. The ICC is not part of the United Nations, but it is an element of the same corrupt NGO ecosystem that advocates mainly for evil, not for good. We should do what we can to undermine the ICC and punish those who go along with its most egregious actions.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Loose Ends

Loose Ends (255)

• Regarding the helicopter crash that killed Iran’s President Raisi, what are the possibilities here:

  • He had information that would lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton
  • He was flying on Jeffrey Epstein’s used chopper.
  • Jewish space lasers.
  • He was the next Boeing whistleblower

Possible evidence for #1:

But I think this might be fake. And probably this too:

• It is frequently said that the left can’t meme. Here is compelling evidence this is true:

• I’m having a hard time seeing the downside here:

A Trump presidency would risk $1 trillion in clean energy investment, WoodMac says

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) – A victory by Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 presidential election would jeopardize a projected $1 trillion in low-carbon energy investments and carbon emissions would be 1 billion tonnes more by 2050 than under current policies, according to a new analysis by Wood Mackenzie published on Thursday.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in The Daily Chart

The Daily Chart: Sanction This

It is likely the case that Russia is slowly winning the war against Ukraine, despite American assistance to Ukraine. But, we are told, our sanctions, together with our European allies, are grinding down the Russian economy. I wonder about this. Especially when you see figures like this (EU exports to Kyrgyzstan, indicating a massive workaround for sanctions):

Does anyone really believe that Kyrgyzstan’s economy boomed this much starting in March of 2022?