Inspired by our own government, no doubt

plenty more for loyal citizens to track down — pictures here

Xi Jinping Revives Decades-Old Playbook To Supercharge China’s Surveillance State

Chinese President Xi Jinping is seeking a more potent surveillance state in China and reviving a Mao-era program to achieve it, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The revamped approach, dubbed the “Fengqiao Experience for a new era” by Xi, further utilizes everyday citizens to pre-emptively ward off any perceived threats to the government and solidify the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) grip on China’s sprawling society, according to the NYT. “Fengqiao” is a reference to a town in China where Mao-era residents were encouraged by the party to “re-educate” their neighbors through public humiliation and insults.

Beijing is encouraging local governments to hire increasing amounts of workers to watch “assigned grids,” and in April the party issued guidance for managing those workers, the NYT reported. The guidance outlines potential rewards and punishments for monitors of the grids, and calls for doubling down ideological instruction.

The newly unveiled approach adds to China’s already-expansive surveillance state, which boasts 15 million citizens as government informants as well as numerous police officers and party workers, according to the NYT.

January 3, 2024:

Citizen investigators help FBI track down Jan. 6 rioters

They started in January ‘21 and are still going strong.

Just in time for us to head off to our cottages on Fishers Island and make sure all the "No Trespassing" signs and barbed wire survived the winter storms

fore! fishers island club awaits you and your selected guests

Biden’s Signature Bills Send Taxpayer Cash To East Coast’s Fanciest Locales For Airport Upgrades, Ferries And More

When the bipartisan infrastructure package became law in 2021, the White House stated that the bill would “invest in communities that have too often been left behind” and “grow the economy sustainably and equitably so that everyone gets ahead for decades to come,” among other things. Similarly, the White House describes the IRA as “delivering for underserved communities and those that have been too often left behind.”

The administration is spending more than $180,000 to build ferry boats and terminal facilities on Fishers Island, New York, according to Invest.gov. Fishers Island is “an exclusive enclave where generations of old-money families gather to sail and golf,” according to the Wall Street Journal, and dynastic families like the Roosevelts and Rockefellers have frequented the island, per the New York Post.

The administration is also routing $113,000 to upgrade the island’s airport, according to Invest.gov.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, the administration’s domestic agenda is directing nearly $300,000 to pay for improvements for the East Hampton Airport, according to Invest.gov. East Hampton is a favored escape of the New York City metropolitan area’s well-to-do, and some of the wealthiest of its vacationers are known to fly there via private jet or chartered helicopter.

Meanwhile, the administration is also spending $460,000 to deliver “safe streets and roads for all” on Nantucket, Massachusetts, another island getaway frequented by New England’s upper crust, according to Invest.gov. The Nantucket airport is also receiving $1.3 million to cover infrastructure upgrades.

…. Just a few miles away, the airport on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is receiving $1 million from the Biden administration’s landmark bills to pay for improvements, according to Invest.gov. The island is another choice destination for elite New Englanders, and also hosts a massive $11 million estate owned by former President Barack Obama.

Block Island, a popular summer destination off the Rhode Island coast, is also benefiting from the Biden administration’s domestic agenda, with more than $750,000 in public funds going to build ferry boats and ferry terminal facilities servicing the island, according to Invest.gov. In 2023, the average price of the 29 homes sold on the island was just under $2 million, making it the most expensive area in Rhode Island, according to Lamacchia Realty.

The Westchester County Airport, a small facility located right on the border of New York state and Greenwich, Connecticut, is receiving $4.5 million for various upgrades, according to Invest.gov. The airport is frequently utilized by residents of Greenwich — one of the wealthiest towns in the entire country — looking to catch flights without having to go through the trouble of departing from New York City or Newark, New Jersey.

Further down the East Coast, the administration is spending $7.7 million on flood control and coastal emergencies between Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach, Delaware, according to Invest.gov. Biden himself owns a $2.7 million home in Rehoboth Beach, which he has enjoyed frequently throughout his first term as president.

In South Carolina, the administration is directing a whopping $8.3 million to the Hilton Head airport, according to Invest.gov. Hilton Head is “one of South Carolina’s most luxurious beach destinations” that offers “world-class golf courses, renowned restaurants, superb shopping and white-sand beaches as far as the eye can see,” according to Discover South Carolina.

Here’s how a local Fishers Island real estate agency describes this refuge from the hoi polloi, now even more affordable after Joe ordered the great unwashed to pay off your and your children’s Ivy League tuition bills.

About Fishers Island: An unspoiled gem – even during the summer months, the island is no more crowded than a small rural New England town.

How does Fishers Island manage to avoid the development and tourism that plague Long Island, Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, the Hamptons, Cape Cod and coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island? It’s simple. There are no hotels. Everyone here either owns or rents a home (or is their guest) on the island.

Without the overnight crowds to support tourism, the only tourists you’ll find are the guests you bring.

Fishers Island is the ultimate gated community – only the gate is a ferry.

And, from April through October, every ferry is greeted by a New York State Trooper. Couple this with the lowest population density of any ferry-served island in New England, and you have the perfect recipe for safety.

Pal Nancy and I and kids once vacationed on the island with friends who owned a house there. It was beautiful, quiet and, all in all, an idyllic spot; I didn’t, however, notice any particular signs of poverty that would have suggested federal dollars were needed.

You may call it looting, the UN Secretary General calls it a "self-distribution of supplies"

$320 million, tiwce the original estimate, and climbing. Biden’s landbridge to Gaza is a debacle

The main issue, according to Waltz, is that the delivery outside of Gaza has not been the issue, but rather what happens once the aid is delivered across the border, at which point the aid faces the same issues as land-based delivery. 

"It’s going to run into the exact same problems the land routes have faced once it gets across the border," Waltz argued.  "The trucks get ransacked. They get attacked. When they do make it to the warehouse, it’s Hamas controlling the warehouses."

"Whether the trucks come from the sea or whether they come from land, they're going to run into the same buzzsaw of issues once they get inside.

Because of corruption and because they're being run by a terrorist dictatorship that is going to use aid to, one, feed and arm and resource itself, with more nutrients and medical supplies and fuel and what have you," he added. "Then, secondarily, use it as a lever to make sure the Palestinian people don't rise up against them."

Well, if there HAD been a betting pool, I think an affirmative vote would have been entitled to the proceeds — it’s close enough

TODAY:

Biden repeats 2022 Naval Academy appointment story at West Point commencement

shameless

President Biden repeated a claim that he turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy, where he said he intended to play football, during his commencement speech at West Point on Saturday.

Biden, 81, told the graduates that he was “one of 10” appointed to the naval academy by Republican Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs years before he’d go on to defeat him in the 1972 election to become a US Senator.

“I was appointed by the fella I ran against when I was 29 years old to the Naval Academy. I was one of 10. I wanted to play football,” Biden said in his remarks.

“And I’d found out two days earlier they had a quarterback named Roger Staubach and a halfback named Joe Bellino — I said, ‘I’m not going there.’ I went to Delaware. Not a joke,’ the president said.

After Ol’ Sniffer told this same malarky to Naval Academy graduates in 2022, this was reported in American Military News:

“Biden said he was appointed to the academy by then-Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs in 1965, but that is the same year Biden graduated from the University of Delaware – and the Naval Academy does not offer advanced degrees, the New York Post reported.”

The Week in Pictures has come back strong

It’s been pretty thin recently, to my taste, but lots of good ones today. Here’s a very small sample — do go to the link.

Cui bono?

Or maybe that should read WHO benefits? Besides the administration’s favorite pharmaguys, of course.

HHS Set to Roll Out Bird Flu Vaxes by the Millions

Biden’s handlers will have to move swiftly to get COVID-II dispersed and rampaging through the population in time for the election, but don’t worry, they’ve got it in hand: Bird Flu Engineered to Infect Humans Could Be Lab-Produced ‘in Months,’ Former CDC Director Says

This may be one of those rare cases where a house really does have to wait for "the right buyer"

That’s a common excuse for homeowners who have merely overpriced their house, but 295 Taconic Road really is unique, and will appeal only to a small number of buyers, so in this instance, yeah, the owners will just have to wait. I notice that they cut its price yesterday from $3.250 million, to $2.750 , and that doesn’t surprise me, although I think it’s the nature of house itself that’s making for a slow sale, rather than (solely) the price.

It’s a grand antique, which much renovation completed, but with more work still to be done. Houses that are “projects” narrow the buying pool considerably, “antiques” still more, and a location far from town eliminates still another demographic. I love the house and would be very happy in it, and I’d be glad to finish the renovations, but I’m not in the market. Someone will eventually come along who shares my taste and preferences but who, unlike myself, has disposable funds.

I wrote about it here when it came on the market in March, and you can get its details and read some enlightening readers’ comments at that link.

Trump Rally; two views, take your pick

Back in summer of 2016 I attended a Trump rally in Portland, Maine, just to see what all the fuss was about. I’d been led to believe by media reports that his supporters were pretty much drooling, racist morons — “a basket of deplorables”, as one of our most deplorable politicians had put it. I waited in line for 90 minutes to get into the auditorium where he was to speak, and spent that time chatting with those next to me: a soldier on leave, a retired principal from northern Maine and her husband, and the chairman of the philosophy department at a major southern university, in Maine on his summer vacation. None of them were idiots.

When we did get in, Trump delivered an hour-and-a-half speech that was funny, biting, and right on target. I left thinking that the media were seriously underestimating the man and his supporters. So it didn’t surprise me that, on the morning after his election, I met with several acquaintances, liberals all, who were in a state of shock (two of the women were actually weeping) that he’d won, and had idea how he did it. The explanation for why they were so surprised was, I think, that their prefered media fed them stories they wanted to hear, not what was actually happening. Judging from the media’s coverage of Thursday’s Trump rally in the South Bronx, that underestimation is happening again.

Some examples:

Liberal journalists, Democrats bitterly seek to discredit Trump Bronx rally: 'Fake, made-up'

Liberal media commentators, journalists and New York Democrats complained about the massive crowd that showed up for former President Trump's campaign rally in deep-blue New York City, calling the showing "fake" and full of out-of-towners.

Trump rallied a crowd of what his campaign estimated to be 25,000 supporters at Crotona Park in the Bronx on Thursday, far more than the initial 3,500 it said were expected to attend. The crowd size even surprised a CNN reporter on site at the event.

"Certainly a bigger crowd than I think Democrats would like to see, particularly given this is one of the bluest counties in the entire country," CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes said, noting that many attendees were from the Bronx.

Progressive Democrats and liberal commentators on MSNBC tried to discredit the rally before and after it occurred as a contrived stunt to win minority voters in the area.

"Well, I’ll tell you what won’t make a difference at all, Jake, and that’s for Donald Trump to be a ringleader and invite all his clowns to a place like the Bronx," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told CNN's Jake Tapper as the former president's supporters were gathering. "New York will never, ever support Donald Trump for president."

"So if he wants to spend his time doing these made-up, fake rallies and pretending there’s support here, be my guest, because while you’re doing that, Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s out there on the other side making sure he’s delivering for all Americans," Hochul continued.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow New York Democrat, dismissed the Trump rally as a stunt to pay his legal fees.

…. Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on Thursday, accusing Trump of sending in supporters from outside states to "trick" her constituents.

And from Salon’s summary of a report aired on ABC News:

Trump’s Bronx rally wasn’t very big, or very Bronx

“A local New York evening news report by Jim Dolan on ABC7 revealed just how many, or how few, were there. Not to mention the fact that there were plenty of protesters mixed in.”

According to Dolan's reporting, those who were in attendance didn’t amount to a lot, judging by the b-roll aired later that evening. What's more, most individuals in the crowd were not even from the Bronx. 

“Donald Trump can now say he held a rally in the South Bronx, home to immigrants and minority communities, and that it was well attended,” Dolan said. “It’s just not clear that the people who attended were from the Bronx. The campaign controlled who got in, and the campaign, of course, picked only supporters.”

“Plenty of protestors” and “the campaign controlled who got in … and picked only supporters” would seem mutually contradictory to anyone who isn’t one of the flying monkeys of the press, but it’s an easy hurdle for those who are.

But amazingly, there was one legitimate report from the mainstreet press and it was actually aired on MSNBC — it will be ignored, I predict, by that channel’s viewers:

Black, Latino Trump supporters at Bronx rally shut down reporter asking about his 'racist' rhetoric (video at the link)

NBC reporter says minority Trump voters are 'sick of how much they’re paying for gas and groceries, frustrated with the situation at the border'

NBC News reporter Dasha Burns said that several Black and Latino Trump supporters shut her down when she attempted to confront them on the former president’s "racist" rhetoric on Thursday.

Burns appeared on MSNBC on Friday to talk about her coverage of Trump’s massive rally the previous day in deep-blue Bronx, New York. The reporter recalled that the Black and Latino Trump supporters she spoke to on the scene had completely bought into Trump’s anti-illegal immigration and economic policies, even if he had said "racist" and "bigoted" things in the past. 

"They are just so focused on what their lives are like right now, what they can feel tangibly, that when I push back with those comments, they shut that down," Burns told MSNBC host Ana Cabrera, commenting that these voters don’t care about Trump’s rhetoric compared to his policies. 

NBC News reporter Dasha Burns said that several Black and Latino Trump supporters shut her down when she attempted to confront them on the former president’s "racist" rhetoric on Thursday.

Burns appeared on MSNBC on Friday to talk about her coverage of Trump’s massive rally the previous day in deep-blue Bronx, New York. The reporter recalled that the Black and Latino Trump supporters she spoke to on the scene had completely bought into Trump’s anti-illegal immigration and economic policies, even if he had said "racist" and "bigoted" things in the past. 

"They are just so focused on what their lives are like right now, what they can feel tangibly, that when I push back with those comments, they shut that down," Burns told MSNBC host Ana Cabrera, commenting that these voters don’t care about Trump’s rhetoric compared to his policies. 

During the segment, Burns seemed surprised by the fact that many of the people she spoke to were immigrants who supported Trump's points on heavily restricting immigration and potentially calling for mass deportations. 

"Well, this might sound a little counterintuitive, but I did talk to folks in that crowd who themselves were immigrants," she said. "A lot of people that I talked to were born and raised in the Bronx. For some of them, this was their first ever Trump event. And when you talk to immigrants that are going to these Trump rallies, they agree with his message on immigration."

She continued, "Their point is, ‘Look, I did it the right way. I came here legally.’ And especially those living in New York right now, the sentiment I heard from a lot of voters was, ‘We have these immigrants right now that the city is taking care in a way that I’ve never felt taken care of by this city.'"

Another indicated to the reporter he hadn’t forgotten Biden’s comments to podcast host Charlamagne Tha God in 2020 that anyone who votes for Trump instead of him “ain’t Black”.

Burns said that she tried to push back, to no avail.

"Multiple people actually mentioned that Charlamagne tha God interview. I did press back with some of those folks, mentioning some of Trump’s rhetoric that’s been seen as racist and bigoted," she added. "They said they don’t have a problem with that. They view his actions over his words in terms of what they feel he can do for their community."

Burns added that among the attendees were "Black and Latino voters that are sick of how much they’re paying for gas and groceries, that are frustrated with the situation at the border."

In footage of Burns speaking to various minority Trump supporters at the rally, one praised Trump and slammed Biden for having "disrespected the people of the city of New York."

Fire Mayorkas, and put someone who understands the danger of our unguarded border in charge of DHS — like this gentleman

It shouldn’t be that difficult to grasp the concept

A Turkish migrant, who told Fox News he paid around $10,000 to a cartel on his way to the United States, selling everything he owned, said Americans should be worried about the lack of security at the southern border. 

The man told Fox News after crossing illegally into Jacumba, California, in San Diego County: "In fact, American people is right, completely true. Who comes into this country? They don’t know. OK, I’m good. But how if they’re not good? How if they’re killers, psychopath, else? No guarantee of that."

He added of crossing the border: "Like, no security, no security check, no background check." 

The whole world is laughing at us, and deservedly so:

Illegal immigrants tired of waiting for Border Patrol agents get away using ride-hailing app

Illegal immigrants crossing into the United States at the southern border were spotted calling for rides from Lyft as they grew tired of waiting for Border Patrol agents to come pick them up.

Fox News was on the ground in Jacumba, California, observing migrants who had come in across the southern border, and were waiting for several hours to be picked up and processed by Border Patrol agents.

Some Colombians got sick of waiting for the feds to come pick them up, so they called a ride on the ride-sharing app and hopped in the car when it arrived.

No one knows where they went, but possibly they’re off to conduct another dry run terrorist attack on one of our military bases.

Why would anyone take a chance hiring one of these entitled morons?

and where is my land acknowledgement? I want my land acknowledgement!

Harvard commencement speaker goes off script to attack college: receives a standing ovation while 1,000 students and faculty walk out “in solidarity”.

Shruthi Kumar, the Harvard senior selected to deliver the English address [meaning there are other speakers squawking at the crowd in Urdu and Tagalog? Sounds like a fun day in tghe sun — ED] Thursday, pulled out a piece of paper containing controversial remarks hidden up the sleeve of her gown and took aim at university leaders over the decision to deny more than a dozen students their diplomas.

“As I stand here today, I must take a moment to recognize my peers — the 13 undergraduates in the Class of 2024 that will not graduate today,” Kumar told the crowd, according to a video posted by Harvard.

“I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and their right to civil disobedience on campus,” she said of the protests, which famously replaced the American flag with a Palestinian one.

According to a poll conducted by the Harvard Crimson, 82.46% of Harvard faculty identify themselves as liberal or very liberal, 16.08% as “moderate”, and 1.46% as conservative. The incoming class comprises 7% who describe themselves as conservative. So if you were to put a newly-minted Harvard graduate on your payroll, there’s a 93% chance that you’d be hiring someone who came out of high school incapable of independent thought and then spent another four years undergoing further indoctrination. Add in the propensity of these students to disrupt and interfere with the normal operations of an organization while emitting an unremitting stream of whining objections to the unfairness of life, and I’ll ask again: why?

BTW, and just to prove my point about why you don’t want one of these on your worksites or in your office, here’s what Miss “From the River to the Sea” was complaining about in 2022 to keep busy between the 20-21 BLM riots and the 23-24 Palestinian war du jure: “menstrual Equity”.

What will she find to complain about if she clambers aboard your ship? Hire her, and let her surprise you.