We are living in a weird world of constant deception and bizarre government policies. Sometimes the liars are easily exposed, usually the policies are facially absurd, and this week there are 10 such examples.

1. Claiming that the  U.S. is responsible for Cuba’s failed state

Pinning the blame for Cuba’s failures on the U.S. is the argument of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (The other being the nonsense about Cuba’s great medical care and universal literacy.) In a pithy tweet, James Pethokoukis makes a hash of this nonsense.

James Pethokoukis

@JimPethokoukis

Jul 16

Again, saying a socialist economy would work great -- if only it were allowed to trade with the rich capitalist country nearby is not the killer argument that socialists think it is 

Babalu blog, which tirelessly covers Cuba, reports on the rebellion going on there and its reasons (none of which have to do with U.S. sanctions, which do not in any event cover food or medicine purchases) summarizes the week’s rebellion on Cuba.

This sudden eruption of dissent was caused by a perfect storm of calamities, all of which have revealed the Big Lie of the revolution. Lately, life in Cuba has become more unbearable than ever for just about every Cuban. The crisis is due to a long string of blunders and catastrophes, linked like beads on a rosary from hell: The loss of revenue from Venezuela, a collapsed economy, gargantuan foreign debt, a disastrous sugar harvest, uncontrolled inflation, a plague that is intensifying in Cuba rather than abating, a crumbling health care system, medication shortages, food shortages, water shortages, electricity blackouts, and increased repression, to name but a few. Never mind the sanctions by the United States or the so-called embargo that Cuba’s military junta and many of the world’s news outlets are blaming for the current crisis. These are inconsequential factors, a decoy skillfully manipulated by the oligarchs in order to distract from their own ineptitude and the congenital defects of the communism they embraced. These protesters know the ultimate cause of their distress is their lack of freedom in all spheres of life, which is nothing new.

2. Claiming that BLM cares about Blacks and police oppression of them

Not only does the rebellion in Cuba reveal the shortcomings of this socialist hellhole, but it forces Black Lives Matter to reveal its Marxist sympathies. Despite ample evidence of police state brutality against the largely Brown and Black protestors, BLM has not raised a single objection. This prompts the satire site Babylon Bee to suggest the organization change its name to “Black and Brown Lives Matter Unless They are Protesting Communism.” Cuba’s leadership is after all lily White and, from the outset of the revolution, Castro and Che Guevara showed no sympathy to Cuban Blacks. The psychotic sadist Guevara, whose portrait adorns T-shirts and other gear worn by rich  Hollywood figures and American leftists everywhere, was clearest on the animus to Blacks.

After the Revolution's victory in 1959, he famously said, "We're going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing."

And no, it wasn't just hard feelings over how Cuban blacks had supported the biracial dictator Fulgencio Batista. With Guevara it was more of a conviction, as we can glean from another quote. Speaking of blacks he said: "The ***** is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."

Maybe, instead of defacing the statue in Philadelphia of Matthias Baldwin, an abolitionist who early on funded a school for Black children and fought for Black voting rights, BLM members ought to deface those posters of Che which are found on every college campus and in every leftwing street demonstration.

3. Higher Education is Always a Fit Subject for Ridicule

At the same time, the left pushes for everyone to get a college education -- prepared for higher-level work or not -- while arguing that this (they think) ticket to riches is a venue full of racism and rape. This week, the claim is made at the University of North Carolina, where I can state with a fair degree of certainty the complainers are infinitely safer than they’d be on the streets of Chicago. In a similar vein, civil rights groups that fought for police body cams now oppose them, probably because they are more reliable than the usual fake and unreliable eyewitness reports of friends and family of the perps. 

4. Georgia Peach

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who when it mattered denounced the Trump election challenge, claiming it was a perfect election in Georgia, has now admitted the election was far from it.

He tweeted “Fulton County’s continued failures have gone on long enough with no accountability. Rick Barron and Ralph Jones, Fulton’s registration chief, must be fired and removed from Fulton’s elections leadership immediately. Fulton’s voters and the people of Georgia deserve better.”

5. Minority Party Rights

In order to prevent a quorum to vote on election reform, Texas Democrats, a minority in the state legislature, fled the state (unmasked) on a private plane to Washington, D.C.  (Three of them have now tested positive for Covid.)  The hypocrisy is clear to me even if they are missing hypocrisy detection filters. They say they came here to demand an end to the filibuster on the ground that it allows a minority to control the agenda. (Let me know if any reporter interviewing them, points out this irony.)

6. Global Warming and the Great Plastic Scare

Global warming, as always, is a ripe area for factual discrepancy from partisan hype.  

...a new report that shows greenhouse gas emissions are not an American or Western problem. They are primarily a Chinese problem. A study from Sun Yat-sen University in China found that more than half of the world’s urban greenhouse gas emissions are generated in only 25 big cities, and 23 of them are located in China. In other words, if the entire developed world cut its greenhouse gas emissions as activists, politicians, journalists, and celebrities have demanded, nothing would change regarding the climate. (This assumes human carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for warming the planet, which is a load of speculation that’s yet to be proved.)

And yet the great reset would impoverish the West and leave China to continue to emit most of the greenhouse gas emissions.

While revenue-greedy politicians charge taxes for single-use plastic grocery bags (certainly creating greater opportunities for bacterial infections by those utilizing reusable bags) ban plastic straws, and conscientious homeowners wash and reuse baggies to save the oceans, their attention would be better focused across the Pacific Ocean.

The same source that notes where carbon emissions are greatest repeats a known but well-buried fact.

The data show 90% of ocean plastic pours into the sea from ‘the top 10 rivers with the highest loads’ of plastic debris, according to the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. None are in the U.S., which contributes only about 1% percent of all plastic debris found at sea. Eight of them though are in Asia, while two are in Africa.

7. What Causes COVID Spikes and What Doesn’t?

The same kind of jerks that once claimed Black Lives Matter protests do not and did not lead to a spike in COVID-19, now claim that Cuban protestors do not have that magical disease protection aura.

8. Elections and Prosecutorial Halts

I would suppose that when there is evidence that the adult child of a presidential candidate is involved in substantial wrongdoing in the middle of a political campaign it might be wise for prosecutors to hold off rather than influencing an election. In any event, that’s the explanation for prosecutor U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s not investigating Hunter before the election.

On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman reminds us how selectively this non-election interference ploy is played.

There was the ridiculous Russian Collusion case against Donald Trump in 2016 which federal prosecutors “managed to keep the fantastical case alive through the next congressional election cycle”; James Comey’s bizarre exoneration and just as bizarre reopening of the case against Hillary Clinton; and the outrageous prosecutorial misconduct by which Department of Justice lawyers got a conviction against Senator Ted Stevens less than two weeks before Election Day. (A conviction that cost Stevens his reelection and that greased the skids for ObamaCare.)

In any event, as Freeman asks, when will be a good time to investigate Hunter Biden?

As for today’s U.S. attorney in Delaware who refrained from pressing the Biden case last year, Mr. Weiss seems to be a dedicated public servant. This week’s Politico account spends many paragraphs explaining what a straight shooter he is. It all sounds very plausible and let’s hope it’s true. But a year after Mr. Weiss held off on the Biden inquiry, is there any evidence of a vigorous new search for the facts? The news from Main Justice is not entirely reassuring. Politico notes:

In December, Hunter Biden hired Chris Clark, a partner at the national firm of Latham & Watkins, as his defense attorney.

In January, upon taking office, Biden appointed Nicholas McQuaid to be the interim head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Until his appointment, McQuaid had also been a partner at Latham, where he had worked on some cases with Clark. Justice Department conflict of interest rules would require McQuaid to receive a waiver to participate in oversight of the Hunter Biden probe. A DOJ spokesman, Joshua Stueve, declined to say whether McQuaid had received a waiver or recused himself from the case. Clark did not respond to a request for comment.

When is a good time to investigate Biden finances?

9. Big Tech and White House Message Coordination (i.e., Censorship)

James Freeman also notes this week’s admission by White House spokesperson Psaki that Big Tech and government agencies are coordinating to monitor and censor content on Facebook and other platforms. Politico reports that “Biden-allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee” were not only joining in the censorship program but as well were going to work with SMS carriers  to monitor and “dispel misinformation about vaccines sent over social media and text messages.”

Ben Weingarten tweets reminding us how this works:

Reminder: The government ‘protecting you’ from ‘misinformation and disinformation’ used the Steele dossier--the ultimate misinformation/disinformation doc--to seek to bring down its political foe par excellence via Russiagate, the ultimate misinformation/disinformation campaign.”

10. The Lies About January 6 Slowly Are Exposed

This week, then-Capitol Police chief Steven A. Sund debunked the claim that the evacuations of the Capitol Buildings were caused by the pro-Trump demonstrations. Instead, he said that the evacuations were actually caused by the discovery of pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC headquarters located not far from the Capitol. To my knowledge, no one has been charged or arrested with placing those bombs and no one has claimed any of the many arrestees being held in unconscionable conditions for months had a thing to do with the bombs even though there are security videos of the guy who planted them.

11. Biden’s Open Border

Biden is changing two Trump policies which not only signal the border is open for a flood of immigrants who cannot be held outside the country while their claims are processed but assure that they will be released to go around the country. Worse, as the administration warns of a COVID-19 Delta variant (which so impressed Los Angeles and Las Vegas pols that they demand masking again), the rejection of the Trump policies on admitting immigrants with COVID-19 now means that migrants who carry the disease are free to enter the country.

Really, it’s crazy overload, but I doubt this is the end of it.

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