(a) Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph (paywalled; cached copy) about how the chickens of free money printing during COVID are coming to roost big time:
In each country, there are local explanations for why each party is so unpopular. But there is one common, global theme. Inflation.
Rapidly rising prices are a catastrophe for whichever group of politicians happens to be in power.
Real wages get hammered. Interest rates have to go up, tipping economies into recession and raising unemployment.
Public spending has to be cut to cope with soaring interest and welfare payments.
And, perhaps worst of all, governments have no one else to blame as voters work out that printing money for wild spending sprees is what caused the crisis in the first place.
Here’s a simple prediction. Not a single government will be re-elected anywhere in the developed world over the next three years. Inflation will wipe them all out. […]
With prices rising by between 8pc and 10pc everywhere (and by a terrifying 20pc in the case of Estonia) and still climbing, virtually no ruling administration can be re-elected anywhere. Here’s why.
First, once inflation starts to take off real wages inevitably get hammered. We can see that very clearly in the UK, where wages may be rising by 4pc per year, but with inflation now at 9.1pc, the amount that people earn is actually falling by 5pc annually.
But the same remorseless logic is taking hold everywhere. In Germany, wages are rising at an average of 3pc but prices are going up by 7.9pc; in the US, wages are up by 3.4pc but prices by 9pc; and in the Netherlands wages are up by 3.8pc but inflation has now gone past 10pc. Living standards are getting squeezed and people are feeling poorer. In many cases, families have to cut back on holidays, new clothes, or even food simply to make ends meet.
Against that backdrop, it is hardly surprising that whoever happens to be in power is very unpopular.
Next, recessions are inevitable. Central banks have only one real weapon to bring prices back under control again and that is pushing up interest rates. The Federal Reserve has started tightening monetary policy in the US. So has the Bank of England in this country, and the European Central Bank is expected to start next month.
Read the whole thing. No, this isn’t just Buck Joe Fiden, this is everywhere.
(b) This is one of my favorite tweets about the Roe vs. Wade repeal (via Instapundit):
The other one, via Powerline:
And in reply:
Most liberals no doubt understand that they now will have to take their case to the voters, and that when the dust settles, American abortion laws will look pretty much like Europe’s. And some states will be extremely permissive–New York, for one, may legalize infanticide, which the states are perfectly free to do. So, once again–why the hysteria?
I think several elements are at work here, but the most basic is that liberals (Democrats) do not want to take the issue of abortion to the voters. They do not want to have to make their case. They do not want to have to argue and persuade. Rather, they want all views opposed to their own to be banned and unheard. Delegitimized.
This is perhaps the dominant fact of 21st Century politics. Liberals don’t want to debate, they don’t want to persuade. They want to censor. They want some higher authority, whether the Supreme Court, Twitter, or corporate America, to declare all views but theirs out of bounds. They don’t want to participate in democratic politics, they want to rule by fiat. For all their wailing about “our democracy,” the last thing liberals want is the actual give and take of a democracy, which usually entails compromise.
I think that is the key reason for the Left’s hysteria over Dobbs. For liberals, having to argue, to persuade, to run for office, to participate in the messy work of democracy where you don’t always win, is a step backward. They had everything going their way, and now…this.
Viewed in that light, I think the demonstrations, insurrections, encouragement of assassination of Supreme Court Justices, and arson at Christian maternity centers are understandable.
John Hinderaker on Powerline https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/06/why-the-abortion-hysteria.php
And yes, I’ve been saying for years that looney leftism is a religion and abortion is one of its sacraments.
Ginning up outrage about the decision might work with the general public if things were going okay otherwise, but with so many people struggling to make ends meet due to inflation, it doesn’t seem to be a major priority now: https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/06/26/joe-biden-and-democrats-stare-into-the-abyss-after-latest-poll-drops-n584687
Guess what happens when one side is running on an issue 82 percent of people rank as a top priority, while the other side is running on an issue that only 42 percent say is a top priority? The former wins every single time. Worse, for Democrats, some percentage of that 42 percent saying abortion is a top priority are pro-lifers, which does nothing to help their electoral chances–and actually works against it. […]
The real question is: Why did Democrats think abortion would be their saving grace in the first place? The Dobbs decision leaked two months ago. If anything, Republicans have gained ground over that time. The fact that the decision is doubly official now is not going to do anything to change the national landscape. In fact, I think the radicalism of the progressive left getting laid bare on abortion could actually alienate some voters. They aren’t out there talking “safe, legal, and rare” anymore. It’s abortion through birth, and relatively few Americans support that.
In the end, Democrats are staring into the abyss, and their big solution is to douse themselves in gasoline near an open flame.
(c) Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Top Gun: Maverick, the unapologetic and decidedly un-woke [to LSD fantasies] sequel to the classic 1986 movie, is on track to become one of the biggest blockbuster movies of all time. Somebody tried to imagine what a woke version would be like:
ADDENDUM: Matthey Lynn wrote earlier about the dismal truth why so many people (in the UK) don’t want to work (https://archive.ph/j219U ). If you give incentives for people to drop and stay out of the labor market, and provide disincentives for those wanting to enter or return to it:
This list of barriers to working is getting so long it is hard to keep up. Over the pandemic, we understandably lifted the sanctions for anyone on benefits who refused to work. But now that it is over, they have still not been properly restored. In effect, some people can stay at home drawing benefits and no one asks any difficult questions.
We are also increasing benefits, and especially pensions, in line with inflation but not wages, making work less attractive. We have just put up National Insurance, the most regressive tax ever created, directly punishing anyone who goes back to full-time employment. Health and safety rules may well be well-meant, but they have forced up the cost of childcare to some of the highest levels in the world, meaning one or other parent – and, if we are being honest, usually the mother – has to stay at home to look after the kids.
Meanwhile, in many very ordinary, but still satisfying, lines of work, we have introduced lots of pointless qualifications for tasks that used to be learned by watching your colleagues. No doubt the City & Guilds Professional Bartending qualification, with two separate sub-modules in cocktails and pouring, is useful enough in its own way. But it is just possible that after a couple of days most of us could put together a perfectly respectable mojito without it.
Even worse, the Government isn’t offering any incentives. We could offer the over-55s a lower rate of NI, for example, given that you already don’t pay it over the state pension age. That might encourage a few to think again about retirement. We could offer a lower rate of tax for anyone coming off benefits. And we could deregulate childcare so that the cost was less crushing, while cutting back the qualifications needed for any job to the bare minimum.
With 67 million people, the UK has plenty of people to fill all the jobs that need doing. But until we start making work more attractive it isn’t going to happen.
ADDENDUM 2: for all of F. Joe Biden’s grandstanding right now, in 1982 he sang a very different tune :
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/06/26/the-supreme-court-just-did-exactly-what-joe-biden-voted-forin-1982-n1608276 In 1973, when Roe was first decided, Biden said that it went “too far.” In 1974, he said that a woman shouldn’t have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.” As a pro-life position, this was flawed; it’s a staple of pro-abortion rhetoric that abortion involves a woman’s body alone, while pro-lifers point out that there is another, different body involved: that of the child who is the victim of abortion.
[…] In 1973, when Roe was first decided, Biden said that it went “too far.” In 1974, he said that a woman shouldn’t have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.” […] Nonetheless, this reasoning was enough to lead Biden to vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1982 for a Constitutional amendment that would have allowed individual states to reject Roe v. Wade and outlaw abortion. Getting heat from his far-Left colleagues, Biden said apologetically, “I’m probably a victim, or a product, however you want to phrase it, of my background.” He claimed that this vote was “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a U.S. senator.”
Ever the untrustworthy opportunist, he voted against the same bill the following year, and on Friday, he was anxious to label the idea of giving the states the right to determine the legality of abortion “extreme.”
Spin, strangeness, and charm 
Roe vs. Wade.
States Rights Washington Bites. Now get Washington out of healthcare and education. Where was Obamacare during Covid? Washington leave the 2nd Amendment alone. Close the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI while your at it, don’t forget the Secret Service and IRS, together with the Federal Reserve. Annul the 17th Amendment.
A note on inflation:
There are actually two things currently driving it: not only is there too much money, but it’s chasing too few goods, what with production being down and global trade being disrupted in so many ways.
The intentional scarcity of energy inevitably leads to scarcer and more expensive goods, even if money is tight. Combining tight energy, loose money, and various certifiably insane schemes to force business to lower prices by raising their costs… well. Gonna be Interesting Times.
Do you mean that we need “supply side economics?”
Oh, noes! Not supply-side economics! Capitalists would get rich, there’d be too much stuff for people to buy, and mass consumption would Destroy the Planet(TM)!
No, the only answer is central planning, to make sure exactly enough of exactly the right things is produced and there’s exactly enough money to pay for it. Now all we need is an omniscient central planner, plus a new breed of humans that will comply with the plan.
I’m not going to tell. But if the Democrats want to play whataboutism on inflation all they have to do is ask why cocaine Mitch didn’t filibuster all the excessive spending that’s causing much of it. Of course the FED won’t have to answer for its part and congress has fully insulated itself from that never ending train wreck of an institution.