Four Additional Bonus Videos:
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
The Pathetic Democratic Pantheon
Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi are of no use to the Left in the midterms because it is their radical ideology that was finally enacted and wrecked the country.
Over the last few months the four icons of the Democratic Party—Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi—have hit the campaign trail.
They’ve weighed in on everything from “right-wing violence” and “election denialists” to the now tired “un-American” semi-fascist MAGA voter—and had nothing much to say about inflation, the border, crime, energy, or the Afghanistan debacle. In this, they remind us just how impoverished and calcified is this left-wing pantheon.
So why should we take anything they say seriously, given their own records—and especially given their mastery of projecting their own shortcomings upon others as some sort of private exculpation or preemptive political strategy?
Still Hopin’ and Changin’?
Barack Obama this past week has assumed the role of surrogate president. He is storming the country, while Joe Biden mopes at home or visits shrinking blue enclaves so he can claim post facto, “At least I was out there stumping.”
Over the last six years, we have become accustomed to Obama’s periodic getaways from one of his three estates. It is always the same. From time to time, he reenters politics to remind us that he did not just cash in on his presidency to become a multi-millionaire. Instead, he is still the Chicago “community activist” of his youth. And so, Obama will not be overshadowed by the Biden crew that is enacting all the crazy things he as president had warned were a bit much even for him.
At the funeral of the late John Lewis, Obama turned his eulogy into a political rant. He weighed in on the “racist” filibuster, the “Jim Crow relic” that he desperately sought in vain to use to stop the appointment of Justice Samuel Alito.
At campaign stops, he deplores “divisions” that he, more than any modern figure, helped create. The entire left-wing vocabulary of disparagement for the white lower-working classes (e.g., deplorables, dregs, chumps, irredeemables, etc.) got its start with Obama’s putdown of Pennsylvania voters who rejected him in the 2008 primaries as “clingers.”
In interviews, Obama suddenly now blasts harsh rhetoric—this from the wannabe tough guy who stole the “The Untouchables” line about bringing a knife to a gun fight. Well before crazy Maxine Waters’ calls to arms, Obama advised his supporters “get in their faces.”
Still, on the campaign trail, Obama appears not so much animated as stale. It is as if he has been suddenly stirred from a long coma that commenced in 2008. It’s the same old, same old—sleeves rolled up. He still resorts to the scripted outbursts of mock anger. And the nerdy prep school graduate still amateurishly modulates his patois—now policy wonk, now breaking into the Southern African-American pastor accent when an audience needs more preachy authenticity.
He still tries to rev up his crowds with the familiar attacks: Republican demons will cut Social Security, the MAGA semi-fascists are captives of Donald Trump (as if the Democrats have not ceded their souls to woke hysterics), the Republican fanatics will all but kill women by denying abortions, and extremists unlike himself are dividing the country.
On and on, Obama shouts about social justice. And then he wraps up and must decide to which of his mansions he will fly home (via private jet)—Kalorama, Martha’s Vineyard, Hyde Park, or soon the Waimanalo estate.
Obama offers no solutions much less hints at his own culpability in his sermons. There is nothing about the open border he helped birth. Nothing about Biden’s failed energy policies now bankrupting the middle class that were simply a reification of his energy secretary Steven Chu’s perverse wishes for European-priced gas (“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”).
There is nothing about Obama’s old boasts about shutting down coal plants and skyrocketing electricity (“Under my plan . . . electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”).
Nothing is said about the Skip Gates psychodrama and his blanket stereotyped attack on police, the tossing of his own grandmother under the racial bus, the Trayvon Martin racial editorialization, the Ferguson mythologies, and all his efforts to create a binary nation of oppressors and oppressed, as Obama himself determined who is the victim, who the...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1196
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1896
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Monday, November 7, 2022
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: HMS Eskimo
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
EBL has: Rule 5 And FMJRA
The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
ESG Boomerangs on BlackRock
However, there are more important things than money -- even on Wall Street. Some liberal businessmen and investment management firms often sacrifice profits to promote their leftist ideological causes.
The case of the BlackRock index fund is one example of misplaced ideological motives. The company has used its financial muscle to browbeat others into toeing ecological, social and governance (diversity) lines. However, BlackRock is now getting a taste of its own medicine. It is paying the penalty for insisting that others bow before the gods of “woke” culture.
Introducing the ESG Rating System
BlackRock is a major player in the latest Wall Street craze of using a rating system to decide who receives its massive supply of investment dollars. This new social credit scheme evaluates investment possibilities based on their compliance with environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets. A state (e.g., Utah), county, city, or company with a negative ESG rating can see itself choked off credit or investment capital.
On January 15, 2020, BlackRock founder and CEO Larry Fink sent a letter to CEOs saying that he will use its power to ensure “every government, company, and shareholder must confront climate change.”
The plight of these targeted companies is made worse by investment managers at index funds like BlackRock, who control vast numbers of shares. They can use the ESG ratings against corporate boards by promoting shareholder resolutions to force management to advance liberal social causes, eco-climate standards, and diversity employment goals. ESG eco-activists especially target fossil-fuel companies that are slated ideologically for extinction.
BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with index funds worth $10 trillion. With Vanguard and State Street -- all under “woke” management -- Blackrock has been using its massive financial muscle to steer Wall Street down disastrous ideological paths.
A Boomerang for Blackrock
Wall Street and investors are pushing back.
Analysts are saying that making financial decisions on ideology is a risky affair. It cannot be sustained and left unpunished.
BlackRock’s energetic focus on ESG investing is affecting its bottom line. The index fund’s performance is deteriorating, and risks are accumulating. In the face of this situation, UBS Wealth Management recently downgraded ratings for BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) by now listing it as a “Neutral” recommendation rather than a “Buy.” The bank also cut the target stock price to $585 from $700.
The new recommendations were made based entirely on BlackRock’s reckless ESG positioning. UBS says that stubborn insistence on this course could also trigger increased regulatory inspections and investor withdrawals.
Thus, the company pressuring countless firms to adopt more “woke” positions has suddenly found a boomerang coming in its direction. Investors and analysts are now telling BlackRock that ESG shenanigans are bad business and want it stopped.
Feeling the pressure, BlackRock has posted “clarifications” on its website that seek to dispel the idea that it has boycotted fossil fuel investments entirely by highlighting some special funds that feature them. Nevertheless, the firm continues offering a list of other funds that exclude fossil fuels. It still supports shareholder resolutions that promote the ESG agenda.
Abandoning ESG Efforts
It may be too late for clarification. Business executives are questioning the need for the ESG project that BlackRock pushes so hard. A recent...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)