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Good Friday Morning! Except to the lightbulb industry. You know all the jokes about “how many [insert profession here] does it take to change a lightbulb?” Don’t ask that question to the Gen-Z generation.
Here’s why: “Researchers for Halfords surveyed 2,000 grown-ups, including Zoomers, as well as millennials, guys and gals ages 28 to 44; Gen Xers, folks 45 to 60; and baby boomers, silver foxes over age 60, to determine each demographic’s level of self-sufficiency. The investigators found that nearly 25% of Gen Zers had no idea how to change a lightbulb in a ceiling lamp, with many claiming that climbing a ladder is ‘too dangerous.‘ One in five also worry that the bulb might be ‘too hot.’“
I don’t know how many Gen-Zers it takes to change a light bulb. But statistically, it’s more than one.
I have one big announcement this week: I’m launching a new newsletter with the Conservative Institute crew. The American Almanac will hopefully start dropping into email inboxes next week. I’ll have signup information and more later. We’re still hammering out the technical back end.
American Almanac will be a Monday-Friday newsletter covering the day’s big stories and more. We’ve been working on it for 2-3 months and are excited about the launch – stay tuned!
Joe Biden delivered his farewell address this week, and I’m covering that–links to follow.
Quick Hits:
- Google told the European Union that it would not start including “fact checks“ into its search results, alongside YouTube videos, or build fact-checking into the algorithm. This is despite a new EU law going into effect that demands such. Google responds that it has never done that and has no plans to start. However, given the backdrop of this occurring with Mark Zuckerberg / Meta getting out of the fact-checking business, it’s not hard to see a loosening across the tech ecosystem. Hopefully, this marks a reversal of trends we’ve seen with these tech platforms. But it would also be a 4-year blip depending on the next election’s results.
- Here’s a fun legal hypothetical: will Bill Belichick really be the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels? According to CBS Sports, he hasn’t signed a contract with the University. And most believe he’s actively listening to NFL offers. If he does bolt to the NFL at the last second, could North Carolina sue him for the $10 million buyout in the contract despite him not signing on the dotted line? He’s already acting and holding himself out as a coach, and North Carolina has been relying on that. It’s tough to say.
Where you can find me this week
Please subscribe, rate, and review The Horse Race on YouTube — the reviews help listeners, and readers like you find me. Make sure to sign up for the Conservative Institute’s daily newsletter.
Horse Race Ep. 019: Would Biden Have Won? | Elections To Watch In 2025
California Is Rudderless In The Middle Of A Great Disaster – Conservative Institute
Trump Should Reject The Hamas Ceasefire Deal– Conservative Institute
Joe Biden Is The Oligarchy He Warns About – Conservative Institute
The Biden Administration Ends… Almost.
In the annals of presidential farewell address history, Joe Biden’s was certainly… one of them. On Mark Halperin’s morning show the following day, he forced Sean Spicer and Dan Turrentine to say something nice about the speech. Neither could come up with anything, and Halperin scorched it himself.
John Podhoretz of Commentary didn’t hold back, either: “The first half of Biden’s farewell address sounds like it was written by ChatGPT. The second half: Like a column by Al Neuharth in USA Today in 1985. Pretty close to being the worst Oval Office speech, as a matter of rhetoric, ever delivered. Trying to think of a worse one.“
The only positive I had was that it was around 17 minutes long. After that, it was a speech representing the worst of the Biden administration: a slurred muddle of empty platitudes, utterly ignorant of Biden’s role in the national mess.
Biden has spent every day since the election trying to burnish his legacy. When Biden took office, the pandemic was solved. The only thing Biden had to do was take the vaccines from Trump’s generationally successful program—Operation Warp Speed—and continue the rollout. Instead, he instituted mandates, threatened people’s livelihoods, promoted lockdowns that didn’t follow the science we knew at the moment, and crashed trust in government.
From there, Biden emboldened Russia through the disastrous Afghanistan pullout. Putin started stacking troops on Ukraine’s border in March of 2021, not even two months into Biden’s term. After the summer Afghanistan debacle, Putin accelerated his move against Ukraine, and the war started to kick off in 2022.
Biden’s presidency was a disaster from the start and only got worse with each passing day.
Jeffrey Blehar probably had the most negative reaction to Biden’s speech at National Review:
Joe Biden just finished addressing the American people from the Oval Office for the final time in his presidency. And at the end of it all, with this humiliatingly garbled ramble that read like the sort of delusional self-exculpatory fantasy his caretaker wife might whisper consolingly into his ear, Biden concluded his career much as he began it over half a century ago: as a venal, petty-souled fool in denial about his own limitations and failures. (We learned nothing tonight that we didn’t already know. Nothing was revealed.)
In a thick, slack-toned voice, stumbling over his words from beginning to end as he squinted at a teleprompter with vacant eyes, Biden slurred through the single most incoherent speech of his life. He began by taking complete credit for the breaking Israeli hostage deal with Hamas — which was to be expected — and then launched into a sleepy lecture awkwardly framed around the Statue of Liberty and how it was built to sway in the wind, much like America was built to be flexible enough to withstand his presidency. One marble-mouthed cliché after another poured from his half-opened maw, smooth featureless pabulum with all the texture and flavor of Gerber baby food. (Shall America “lead by the example of power or the power of our example?” An imponderable for the ages.)
Biden and Democrats viewed Biden’s election as a rejection of Donald Trump and a return to their ascendancy. They gave us the infamous summer of 2020 when the country burned. We saw wokism peak through the ascendancy of the trans issues, open borders, and government spending so bad that it triggered the worst inflation in a generation.
Trump’s poor campaign cost him the 2020 race. Biden’s failed presidency necessitated the return of Donald Trump in America’s mind after two failed impeachments, January 6, multiple legal cases, and more.
There’s no other way to view Biden’s presidency: it was a failure from start to finish. The failure was so complete that it resuscitated the political career of his nemesis in 2020. As Biden leaves the White House, it’s unclear whether he’s even capable of physically or mentally doing the job. The real truth of his fragility awaits to be told.
NBC News is reporting that Kamala Harris is on the verge of a book deal, which I’m sure no one is interested in. But she will get one of the earlier cracks at defining this presidency and the people within it. Harris has a vested interest, though. She still believes she’s a viable politician.
I would be shocked if Joe Biden got a post-presidency book—not that no one would offer it to him, but that he can’t actually do it. He got out of the presidential papers case because he couldn’t remember anything. Can he physically put together coherent thoughts in book form? His last Oval Office speech suggests not. And he’s not going to get better after leaving on January 20.
Whatever merits the speech has, it will be overshadowed while we await this administration’s final pardons. Do we get preemptive pardons? If we do, I suspect those will drop Friday evening into the weekend. Monday is a federal holiday with MLK Day, and Tuesday is inauguration day.
Biden’s clock is running out. And judging by polls, Americans are breathing a long sigh of relief.
Links of the week
Jill Biden still hopes for a good ending – Washington Post
Why Michelle Obama is skipping Donald Trump’s inauguration – Page Six
Secret Service Readies for ‘Higher-Threat’ Trump Inauguration – RealClearPolitics
TikTok Users’ Move to Chinese App RedNote Alarms Beijing’s Censors – The Information
A Farewell Address to a Woketopia Gone Wrong. And not a moment too soon. – Sasha Stone
Senate Democrats Fail To Rattle Hegseth – RealClearPolitics
CNN’s Scott Jennings: “Pete Hegseth Kicked Their A**es Today,” It Was Embarrassing For The Democratic Party – RealClearPolitics
DeSantis picks Florida AG Ashley Moody to fill Rubio’s Senate seat – Axios
Supreme Court case on age limits for porn sites could affect 19 states – Axios
The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’: This week, The Post began trying out a new mission statement: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” – The New York Times
California’s Policies Laid the Groundwork for Wildfire Danger: The risks are growing, but instead of protecting citizens, state leaders focused on climate change. – The City Journal
Fires Interfere With Newsom Plan to ‘Trump-Proof California’ – New York Intelligencer
LA wildfires show Karen Bass is a ‘joke’ of a mayor — and it’s racist NOT to say so – New York Post
“Your Credibility with Me is about None”: CNN Trial Goes From Bad to Worse – Jonathan Turley
Britain’s ‘rape jihad’ scandal exposes flaws in America’s immigration policies: System needs reform to stop extremists while welcoming those who embrace American values – The Washington Times
X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week
The debut of NBC News’s Today Show happened this week in 1952. Here’s the introduction.
Also debuting this week in 1996: Delilah’s nationally syndicated nightly radio program.
Satire of the week
Michelle Obama Confirms She Will Skip Rest Of Decade – Onion
Kamala Harris Delivers Farewell Address To A Bunch Of Beanie Babies Spread Out On Her Bed – Babylon Bee
Head Of Crime Family Warns About Dangers Of Corruption – Babylon Bee
4 Gifts for Your Unresponsive Friend That Are All Portable Chargers – Reductress
Revamped Village People Lineup Featuring All Cops to Perform At Trump Inauguration – The Hard Times
Every US President Ranked by K/D Ratio – The Hard Drive
Trump Doesn’t Know How To Break It To Boss At McDonald’s That He Got New Job – Waterford Whispers News
Thanks for reading!