Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Under the Fedora: Ace Has Had Enough, Compare and Contrast, The Wages of Woke, Shrinking Pancake Stacks, You mean I have to GOVERN? and the Left tells the World Who They Fear

Posted: April 22, 2023 by datechguy in abortion, Blame Biden Administration, business, culture, election 2024, politics
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I remember sitting next to Ace of Spades at the Scott Brown Victory Party in the press area. Even then he was a person who did not mince words nor had any patience or qualms about saying what was on his mind and what is on his mind about Trump is that he’s finally crossed the line:

 Trump is now repeating all the left wing Democrats’ lies that Florida is a place of “misery and despair,” enlisting, get this, a leftwing blogger to write the hit piece on DeSantis, who in turn gets his “facts” from leftwing sources.

This frankly is Trump’s nature. He has always fought like a Democrat and it’s a lot of fun when his target is a Democrat, but right now he sees Ron DeSantis as the greatest threat to his campaign to return to the White House so anything goes. Ace concludes thus:

I’d also point out that we know for a fact who is the most uncomfortable with the Culture War — cultural liberals like the The Bulwark Boyz and The Dispatch Boyz. They hate the Crazy Christians fighting all the time with their gay frenz, and they want them to stop.

Well, guess who else is cultural liberal who doesn’t want the Crazy Christian fighting the trans extremists.

Is this True Conservatism, Trump-style, now? Is this “populism” — adopting all the cant and tactics of the leftwing, trans-crazy Ruling Class?

And he’s going to be the one to take on The Regime? LOL. He’s repeating every single point of their catechism!

This frankly is Trump nature and you can’t have the good problem solving Trump without putting up with this one but read the whole thing anyways any more than you could get the pragmatic Bill Clinton without the womanizing or the Politically savvy Lyndon Johnson without the temper and corruption.

On the same subject let’s compare and contrast two tactics in “support” of the Donald Trump campaign. A stupid one that relies on falsehoods:

And the smart one that takes the advice in my tweet to heart:

When you’ve got the best record of any president in the last century and a quarter why not run on that record?

At Town Hall Brad Slager has written a must read post which should be posted on the wall of every marketing division of every corporation that considers caving to the woke agenda:

I found Kristin Kroepfl, chief marketing officer for Quaker Foods North America, stating that in the year 2020, the Aunt Jemima brand had $350 million in sales. Okay, this gives us something of a baseline.

Throughout 2021, the Quaker Foods division saw the pancake mix and syrup sales plunge. The period following the introduction of the name switch that summer reported “a double-digit decline in pancake syrup and mix.” This was matched in the final quarter of that year – when the name change had gone into full effect – with “double-digit declines in pancake syrups and mixes.” 

Ever hear how compound interest grows wealth, well compound losses takes it away

This downward trend continued through last year. Quarter 1 delivered another “double-digit decline.” In Q-2, Quaker saw unit volume grow 2% across all of its products but was weighed down by another “double-digit decline in pancake syrups and mixes,” something also seen in the Q-3 reports. The only glimmer of positivity is that the former Aunt Jemima brand saw its bleeding slowing in Q-4, as that line only saw “a high-single-digit decline in pancake syrups and mixes.”

Considering the vagueness of these reports (since “double-digit” can range anywhere from 10 to 99%), even applying the rosiest measurement, by only counting a ten percent decline in each of those six quarters, the former Aunt Jemima brand declined by at least -50% since the name change. It is very likely much worse.

Small bit of advice to Bud Light and all those other who cave to the woke, don’t cave to people who aren’t your customers anyways.

And for the record I haven’t bought “Pearl Hill pancake mix” since the name change.

One fo the things I’ve noticed over the last few months at Hotair are the interesting Notes that Ed Morrissey adds at the end ofo posts by various authors commentating on their point. This one on Abortion and the states is so good that it bears listing here:

The problem for both parties is that the end of Roe also means the necessity of governance on the issue of abortion. That means applying principles in an effective manner and garnering the broadest support for those principles without having to compromise too much on them. While much of the scrutiny of this issue has fallen on Republicans, Democrats have the same issue with their commitment to the extremist position of legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. The side that figures out how to engage the center most effectively will win, but that requires real patience and risk taking — and neither quality is in large supply in American politics. — Ed

That’s it in a nutshell. SCOTUS has forced states to actually make real world decisions, forcing political animals to actually do the job that they’ve begged the voters for and that involves making some people angry.

You can’t go wrong reading Ed Morrissey, ever.

Finally I noticed that the media has done all it can to marginalize RFK JR. in his run for the Democrat nomination, suggesting he is a fringe candidate, however I think they are terrified of him.

USA Today’s confident use of the word “debunked,” however, can’t mask a growing suspicion among an increasing number of Americans that the authorities aren’t being honest with us. The COVID vaccine debacle, with what was originally touted as a single shot that would protect you from a deadly disease becoming multiple shots and boosters that carried side effects that were often worse than COVID itself, only fueled that suspicion. So the establishment media’s confidence that voters will dismiss Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because they dislike this vaccine skepticism may be whistling in the dark.

Kennedy also said something extremely interesting in his announcement that he was running: “My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now – threatening now – to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country.” Well, yes, and no one else is talking with this kind of clarity and consistency about the kind of collusion that we saw in the Twitter Files between the massive corporations and the government. Not even Donald Trump.

And that more than anything else is why the Democrats have announced that there will be no debates between the Democrat candidates for President.

Robert Spencer is a smart guy and thinks it’s pretty much done

They’re going with Biden for reelection, and they know that he can only hurt his own chances by standing toe-to-toe against a man who can actually articulate a coherent sentence and defend his positions, as well as against a woman who, however loopy she may be, looks like Madame Curie next to Old Joe.

And so despite the fact that RFK, who has never been a national figure, immediately jumped to 14%, there will be no real Democrat race. There will just be a coronation. No one should have ever expected that anything would be different. After all, these people have made it abundantly clear that they don’t really like disagreement and want to silence dissent. Why would they allow it within their own party?

I’m not so sure, while changing the primary schedule will certainly help I suspect that RFK Jr. will do a whole lot better than anything thinks in the primaries because he doing what Trump was doing in 2016, saying forbidden truths aloud and promising to address the problems they bring and while the activist class that gets it’s funding from the machines are unlikely to be with him I suspect normal democrats who would never vote for Trump might just decide to hitch their wagons to a Kennedy.

Let’s go Brandon: Chicago exodus accelerates as Walmart closes four stores

Posted: April 16, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, crime, economy, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Some big news came out of Chicago on Tuesday. For the first time since 1996, and only the second time since the riotous year of 1968, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago next year.

But more consequential news arrived Tuesday as well. America’s largest retailer, Walmart, announced it was closing four of its Chicago stores, half of its city presence. These outlets lock their doors for good tonight.

Chicago’s relationship with the big box giant has been a hate-love-hate one. In the early 2000s, the term “food desert” came into use to describe areas without access to fresh food, but really, what theses apologists were talking about were neighborhoods where supermarkets pulled out because of high crime, mostly shoplifting. In their place sprang small stores, family-run operations usually owned by people from the Middle East, or south or east Asia. Of course, these merchants charge shoppers more for goods because, without the volume discounts that the retail behemoths enjoy, they have to. 

And it was in the early 2000s that Walmart, and its primary big box rival, Target, wanted to open stores in major cities like Chicago. Target, even though like Walmart is non-union, got a pass from the opposition–the Chicago City Council and its union allies–because Target is a creature of the left. Walmart’s corporate philosophy was decidedly conservative then. So the City Council, that failed body that sees one of its members convicted on corruption charges every eighteen months or so, passed an anti-big box retail store ordinance in 2006, which Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed. I believe it was his only veto in his 22 years as mayor. 

So Walmart arrived in Chicago, opening eight stores, some of them in impoverished areas. That’s the love part. 

And now for more hate. 

Widespread looting during the George Floyd riots in 2020 hit Chicago retailers hard. North Michigan Avenue, one of America’s premier luxury shopping areas, was devastated by a second round or looting two months later, igniting a retail exodus. As for Walmart, all of its Chicago stores were shuttered, four for two months. Two other stores, including one of the outlets that closes tonight, in Chatham on the South Side, were shuttered for six months. The Chatham location, a supercenter, was also set on fire. On this weekend’s edition of Fox Chicago’s Flannery Fired Up, host Mike Flannery said of the Chatham outlet, “It was virtually destroyed.”

Now it and three other Walmarts are closing.

Late last year, Walmart’s CEO, Doug McMillon, decrying shoplifting, particularly thefts conducted by organized gangs, issued a general warning. If local law enforcement didn’t do their job, “prices will be higher, and/or stores will close.” He added, “It’s just policy consistency and clarity so we can make capital investments with some vision.”

Last week, in response to McMillon’s comments, WIND-AM’s Dan Proft remarked, “That is a very vanilla way of saying ‘We can’t do business in a place that doesn’t enforce the rule of law.'”

And in Chicago and elsewhere Walmarts are closing because leftist public officials refuse to enforce the rule of law. Two weeks ago Chicago elected a neo-Marxist leftist, Chicago Teachers Unions product Brandon Johnson, as mayor. What did Johnson, then a Cook County commissioner, say about looting in 2020? He refused to denounce it. In fact, Johnson minimized it because looted businesses have insurance.

Sheesh.

The mayor-elect was a defund-the-police proponent, until this year, when he wasn’t. Johnson favors something he calls “Treatment not Trauma,” he wants to send social workers instead of cops to domestic disturbances.

In a press release announcing the closings, Walmart said, “The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago – these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years.” Hey, but at least, as Johnson pointed out, Walmart has insurance. Of course, insurance companies never lowball claims, they never raise rates, and they never cancel policies due to risk factors. Right?

As for Johnson, he’s off to a wretched start as mayor-elect. In his first national media interview after his runoff win over moderate Democrat Paul Vallas, Johnson blamed large companies for Chicago’s high crime and poverty rates. “We have large corporations,” Johnson replied when asked about criminality in the city, “seventy percent of large corporations in the city of Chicago — in the state of Illinois, did not pay a corporate tax.” That’s probably false–and while Chicago does have sales and property taxes, it doesn’t have a Detroit-style municipal income tax. Johnson claims he’s against a city income tax, but in a February Flannery Fired Up appearance, he repeatedly dodged questions on whether he supports one.

The day after the store closings were announced, Fox Chicago reported that six televisions were shoplifted from the Chatham Walmart. In a way, the five-finger-discounter was participating in a going out of business sale.

Chicago’s meddlesome priest, the obnoxious and bombastic Father Michael Pfleger, is one of the loudest voices condemning the Walmart closings. He is threatening to lead a boycott of a Walmart supercenter located just outside of Chicago’s city limits. Good lord, Pfleger is a bigger goof than I thought. If that suburban Walmart closes because of a boycott, it will mean one less shopping choice for Chicagoans–and an even larger food desert.

Tyson Foods, Boeing, Citadel, and Caterpillar are among the corporations who have recently closed offices in Chicago and its suburbs. As I mentioned earlier in this post, North Michigan Avenue is dying because stores are shutting down. Chicago’s population is declining.

The Chicago Exodus began in 2020. It’s accelerating now.

One more thought: On Saturday night a very large group of what the media called “teenagers,” thugs is a better word, descended on downtown Chicago. They smashed car windows, set some vehicles on fire, and two people were shot. I call that a riot. One woman watched helplessly as her husband was beaten by a mob. There was a similar gathering the night before at a South Side beach.

Chicago’s criminals are emboldened.

Hell has arrived. I’ve seen what an urban hell looks like. It’s called Detroit.

Let’s go Brandon!

John Ruberry is a regular suburban Chicago Walmart shopper who blogs at Marathon Pundit.

If the Choice is between Motivating the Left and Saving Kids or De-Motivating them and Letting Kids Get Slaughtered I’ll take the former Every Time.

Posted: April 10, 2023 by datechguy in abortion, catholic, culture, election 2024, elections, politics

Look, If I’m going to hell, it’s not going to be over a peanut

Mother Angelica when told if she didn’t give a kickback her sisters would lose their peanut concession

I seem to be noticing a lot of articles like this one on Abortion and the electoral map.

They’ve been polling on abortion since forever, and the evolution of American attitudes toward the issue of abortion can be clearly tracked here and here. Lately, a significant shift in those polls has occurred and voters are now tilting decisively in favor of permitting abortion in most circumstances.

This shift has taken place after last spring’s Dobbs decision, which left abortion up to individual states. This suggests at least some abortion opinion was moved by many states making abortion illegal. Some women didn’t know what they had until it was gone.

America used to be a 50-50 nation on abortion. Not anymore.

Yeah who knew that women were dying for the right to kill their kids right up until the day they were born. That’s what we’re seeing getting passed in blue states all over.

Moran ends thus:

There is no substitute for that kind of motivation. And unless Republicans can come up with a dynamite solution to their abortion problem, they’re going to end up in the minority — perhaps permanently.

Well let me remind Mr. Moran and the GOP why a person whose first vote for President was for Walter Mondale. It was the very first CPAC back when it was in DC proper. I had interviewed a bunch of Tea Party types and bloggers ad thought it would be a cool thing to talk to Democrat about what they believe and why. During the interview they asked me why I became a republican and I was asked by them: Why did you want to be a republican.

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I suspect I’m not alone among people of faith who went to the GOP because they were no longer welcome with the Democrats as faithful Christians.

We voted this way and worked this way for a purpose. The purpose was to end the evils of abortion and the other cultural evils that have come from it.

These purposes, not the power of elected office is what this has been all about .Did the GOP drop anti-slavery because they lost in 1856? Did they drop anti slavery when there was pushback from the army and some of the populace over the Emancipation proclamation?

I’m sorry but the principle of not slaughtering kids in the womb is more important than polling from an individual election and it will remain so.

If the GOP doesn’t want to provide a home for the faithful, if power trumps principle and if the goal is not to advance our beliefs but to advance people careers then I wish them the best of luck.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. If the choice is between a pro-life democrats who actually means it and a pro-abortion republican whether they mean it or not, I’ll choose life every single time.

Fast Thoughts Under the Fedora Incentives, Consequences, Does cheap beer trump Culture? A Drag Question, Courage Still the Primary Virtue

Posted: April 4, 2023 by datechguy in crime, culture, politics, under the fedora
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I keep reading that the polls for Trump are great since the indictment. I think that doesn’t matter. I think what matters is how Kari Lake’s lawsuit in Arizona is doing, because since the laws are being enforced selectively what is the incentive for the left to not steal the election in the same key districts that they did the last time?

Seriously even if you think the last election was on the up and up what is there any disincentive for the left to try to steal this election, seriously do you see one.

I alluded to this yesterday but let me say it bluntly. I don’t want any help for San Francisco from the feds. Not a single penny and not a single federal officer to help enforce the law.

This city and this state elected the people who made the laws there that bred what they got, let them clean it up.

Until there are consequences for their actions, consequences that require then to act, nothing will change.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around Bud Light deciding that Dylan Mulvaney is the perfect face for the brand. Cripes it’s not like there are not a million beer choices out there these days for people choose and doing so a week after a transgender shot up a Christian school speaks volumes.

In fairness to Bud lite I suspect their brand was not high on the Transgender’s customer list before today and in even more fairness everywhere I go Bud lite is the cheep beer offered at a discount. Perhaps they’re figuring that teenagers who want to get drunk cheap are more interested in price then they are politics. They’re likely right but I’d love to see how the distributers are reacting to this.

I wish I had come up with this one but I have to give credit to DaWife who saw this somewhere on facebook:

Ask not why the children shouldn’t see drag queens, ask why drag queens crave an audience of children

In fairness before Christianity took hold, the sexualization of children was the norm so the secular left is just going back to their pre-Christian roots.

Finally in the wake of the WPGA Australasian locking down their twitter account after a biological male won his first WPGA tournament I want to quote swimmer Riley Gaines concerning people’s reaction to her vocal opposition to fake women in women’s sports.

None of those people giving thanks had the courage to do what she did, speak the truth out loud against opposition. This is the goal of the left consequences for speaking the truth aloud and no consequences for pushing a lie, but a few people have the courage to fight against it.

It’s those few who prove that courage remains the primary virtue that all others depend on.

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