Opinion
By Jeff Childers
08-17-24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Your weekend edition roundup includes: Kamala delivers stinking pile of economic garbage and gets battered by corporate media; Dems prepare for their big post-nominating selection convention and observers wonder what could happen; record 2024 solar activity tests journalist’s vocabulary skills; secret Ukrainian peace deal plunges into icy Russian river after Zelensky’s looney invasion; the British face jail time for inconvenient comments, and I offer some suggestions for protesting without protesting.
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🔥🔥 Plot twist! The honeymoon is over. Yesterday, the Washington Post’s Editorial Board ran its official op-ed about Vice President ‘Plan B’ and her new economic proposal, and it was a stinker:
That was fast! The scathing op-ed was prompted by VP Cackle’s economic plan, if you can call it that, which she ‘unveiled’ yesterday by triumphantly plopping it onto the podium where it immediately sank like a lead super-yacht overfilled with migrants.
The gist of Kamala’s “plan” included:
(1) free money to ‘first-time’ home buyers, which will inflate the costs of homes,
(2) price controls on groceries to stop grocery-store ‘price gouging,’ which will cause shortages, and
(3) increased taxes on ‘corporations’ to pay for it all, which since corporations do not actually pay taxes but only collect taxes from consumers, means higher prices for everything.
It was a dumb plan, even for Kamala, which is saying something.
The WaPo’s Op-Ed started coolly and got icier from there:
“Thankfully,” WaPo’s Editors sneered, “this gambit by Ms. Harris has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon’s failed price controls from the 1970s.”
They just compared her to Nixon.
WaPo’s article ended with an expression of official disapproval: “Even adjusted for the pandering standards of campaign economics, however, Ms. Harris’s speech Friday ranks as a disappointment.”
It wasn’t just the Washington Post, either. The New York Times ran a straight-news piece on the Cackle Plan ending with this remarkable expert quotation:
My goodness. The era of media running complete cover for Harris appears to be over. That was fast.
🔥 On Monday, Democrats will gather for their Convention in Chicago’s United Center, a 23,000-seat concert and basketball arena on the West Side, near Chicago’s popular Little Italy district. A little over two weeks ago, the Democrats pre-nominated Harris, a historic bit of political sleight-of-hand that had never ever happened before.
It is possible that, at the Convention, the DNC could convene an emergency meeting to consider a new candidate, asking delegates to re-vote. They could even select a new candidate if they somehow disqualified Kamala.
That would be wild and unprecedented, but Democrats are already paddling around in a wild and unprecedented lake.
It will probably take more than a couple bad headlines to unseat Candidate Plan B. We’ll be watching this weekend for some big reveal, an August surprise. It could be something as simple as bad polling news.
I’m not just tossing out pure speculation. There were a few dark hints in other stories of tentative trouble, Kamala clouds gathering on the horizon. Yesterday, for example, Politico ran this potentially predictive headline:
Could it happen? Could the party dedicated to “saving democracy” suddenly select a second replacement candidate, to save democracy even better? Plan C? I won’t even try forecasting what happens next. We are so far off the political map that we can’t even see the place where we left the map.
Whatever happens, after next week the Dems will be locked into some candidate, Plan B or whatever other plan they finally land on. Then the real contest can begin.
🔥🔥 In a way, the science mags are running into the same problem media had back during covid, when every new, more terrifying variant, arriving like clockwork every eight-point-three minutes, stretched the journalistic thesaurus to the breaking point. Alarming, dire, dangerous, dreadful, fearsome, formidable, horrifying, and so on until they reached the end of the alphabet: worrisome.
Then they went back to the beginning and started over, patiently and methodically working their way back through the letters, but Newsweek prematurely jumped the queue and ejected the “Doomsday variant.” It was all downhill from there, and reporters limply accepted they’d shot their wad and became a spent force.
This phenomenon is only ‘new’ in the sense that, as we’ve become increasingly mentally vaccinated to media alarmism through a long-term desensitization process, they’ve steadily increased the frightfulness-volume setting to a deafening ’11.’
I fondly recall how, back in the halcyon 90’s, enjoying the post-Soviet peace dividend, media would run much simpler doomsday stories like “Formica: The Silent Killer.” Or my personal, all-time favorite, even beyond covid (to which I’ve now devoted a substantial chunk of my career), the Venn-diagram convergence of about six attention-grabbing media gambits: “Is Your Bra Killing You?”
(Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Believe it or not, that’s part of the actual picture from the ‘science’ article.)
But now science reporters face a similar problem, relating to the Sun. The main difference this time is it isn’t made up. And unlike the fake covid crisis, they aren’t using scare words to describe what’s happening this time, because for whatever reason, whenever there is a real threat, they always underplay the dangers and act like giggly middle schoolers trying to keep a secret. But whenever there is no legitimate threat, they panic like a pack of distressed Minions and break the glass, or at least try to, since there’s no glass left anymore to break.
Anyway, here’s yesterday’s Live Science headline:
Media is working its thesauruses again (thesauri?), flipping around in increasing desperation trying to find new and bigger ways to describe the “gargantuan,” off-the-charts solar activity this year, which, and I repeat, has no effect whatsoever on Earth weather.
How unique is this year? It’s gotten to the point that NOAA now has an “Aurora Forecast:”
You guys know I never indulge in cheap End Times rhetoric, but if you want signs in the Heavens, well, I mean, come on. (Note: End Times are good, not scary.)
🚀🚀 In Proxy War news, yesterday the Washington Post ran a surprising story headlined, “Ukraine’s offensive derails secret efforts for partial cease-fire with Russia, officials say.” The sub-headline explained, “The warring countries were set to hold indirect talks in Qatar on an agreement to halt strikes on energy and power infrastructure, according to officials.”
Now they tell us. It was a ‘secret’ because media never reported it till now. Apparently, Ukraine and Russia were planning to meet, to discuss de-escalating their tit-for-tat energy strikes, which Russia is clearly winning, since the lights are still on in Moscow while most of Ukraine is sitting around in the dark.
As they say in Westeros, winter is coming. Astonishingly, WaPo admitted Ukraine is on the breaking point:
The same official explained, “energy is definitely critical for us; we’re facing free fall if there’s no light and heat in the winter.”
Facing free fall. Not literally. He meant it’s lights out, comrades. Game over.
Why would Russia want to agree to stop its effective infrastructure attacks? WaPo didn’t say. Nevertheless, the parties had been optimistic about a potential deal. WaPo’s anonymous diplomat said, “Kyiv and Moscow had both signaled their readiness to accept the arrangement in the lead-up to the summit.”
But then Ukraine invaded Russia last week. Now Moscow says “nyet.”
The Ukrainians seem to have missiled themselves in the foot again. Their ‘daring invasion’ into a small rural district in western Russia isn’t likely to produce any benefit, and has scuttled the delicate ‘secret negotiations:’
If the Ukrainians had somehow managed to grab the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant ahead of these secret talks, they might have held a royal card to play. But they never even got close.
Anyway, compare how the media treated these Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations —by burying the news— to the raft of headlines reporting on the Hamas-Israel peace talks. So let’s check in on those super-marketed talks, to find out whether the Biden Administration pulled off a better result down by the Red Sea.
🚀🚀 Yesterday, following the second day of peace talks originally scheduled for only one day, Middle East headlines were decidedly mixed. Corporate media trumpeted progress: we’re nearly there! AP reported, “Israel-Hamas war latest: Mediators strike hopeful note after two-day cease-fire talks.” But alas, foreign media had a different take. The Jerusalem Post ran a story this morning headlined, “Hamas denies Israeli, US claims ceasefire-hostage deal progressing.” Oops. And Agence France Presse (AFP) ran a similarly squishy story, headlined, “Hamas Official Dismisses Biden Truce Optimism As ‘Illusion’.”
It wasn’t complicated. Hamas thinks the peace talks are suffering from having around too many Americans:
Zuhri added, “Talk about negotiations, coexistence with the occupation, and peace is all lies.” Well, lies are the Biden Administration’s specialty. What did he expect?
As you can see, it’s going great. That’s two failed peace negotiations out of two, in one week — a record! Even for President Cabbage. I suppose the good news is, they’re trying. I just wish someone else were trying.
Maybe a leader with a history of successful peace negotiations? If only we had an option like that. (Cough.)
🔥🔥 This week, the UK Guardian ran a story about the controlled demolition of Great Britain, headlined “Sutton man, 61, who chanted ‘who the f—— is Allah’ is jailed for 18 months.”
Retired railroad conductor David Spring, 61, learned this week that protesting is only protected for people protesting under government-approved narratives. They gave the former conductor a year and a half in prison for what he said. The British judge scolded David, saying “What you did could and it seems did encourage others to engage in disorder.”
Eighteen months! The good news is David can now enjoy being a pen pal with our January 6th political prisoners in America.
Along with many other British, David was upset about illegal immigrants being housed for free —well, at taxpayer expense— in swanky London hotels. It was a good thing David meekly apologized to the court for losing his temper, or else they might have thrown him off a roof for insulting the prophet.
Conservatives in Britain need to get smarter. Protests won’t work. Memes will get them arrested. So they need to learn how to protest without protesting, to politely sandbag their government while coloring inside the new lines. They could, for example, submit every single form the government offers, in triplicate. They could apply for every available benefit. They could automatically appeal every traffic ticket, jaywalking fine, or minor BBC rate increase.
Jam it up.
They could pay their fines and taxes in person, in pennies, or pence, or farthings, or whatever coins the British still use. But be smart about it. First, try politely paying with a hundred dollar (pound) bill. When the bureaucrat says sorry, lads, they can’t make change, only then regretfully pull out the sack of coins.
If they won’t take cash, respectfully ask for the manager, and waste an hour of their time.
Brits, culturally skilled at passive-aggressive courtesies, could scrupulously follow every minor regulation, safety rule, and trivial mandate in ways that disrupt smooth government operation. They could use the many snitch hotlines to mass-report government accounts and public officials’ posts for spreading hate or disinformation. They could file millions of small claims cases for any minor (but non-frivolous!) transgression.
They need to learn to wield the rules against the rule-makers. For instance, disabled conservatives could haltingly cross busy London intersections by degrees, stopping a few times to rest, fouling traffic. It wouldn’t take much planning to create total gridlock.
They could organize “buy nothing” days that briefly shut down the economy. They could organize mass opt-out campaigns and boycott government-friendly corporations. They could relentlessly phone their ministers and local agencies with stupid, time-consuming requests. Sorry, I forgot what you told me last time, be a good bloke and tell me again.
They could visit their local zoning offices in person, and when it’s their turn, they could hog the window, feigning confusion and asking dozens of exhausting questions until the bureaucrat goes insane and orders them out. Then the next citizen in line could step up and repeat the same laborious inquiry. They could all come back the next day and start over.
The ideas are potentially limitless. The idea is legal protests. Protesting without protesting. Quiet riots.
To help our beleaguered British cousins, add your own creative suggestions in the comments.
Shut. It. Down. This strategy exploits the great weakness still available to citizens suffering in allegedly open societies. Politely and compliantly use the government against itself. Force the government to go Full Orwell. But for Heaven’s sake, stop actual protesting. Don’t become a target. Mindless protesting only works for leftists. We are much smarter than they are. Hit them where it hurts. Nicely. Legally.
Every government, even authoritarian governments, operates solely with the consent of the citizens it governs. Just stop consenting. I hope this helps. Get the word out.
Have a wonderful weekend! We’ll be back on Monday morning, quietly and politely rioting, to kick off what promises to be an exciting week of Democrat National Convention news. See you then.
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
