EARLY EDITION: Five Fast News Stories For The Water Cooler (Fri. Mar 10)
TODAY's STORIES: Cartel gift-wraps suspects; debt danger; Xi's three; DeSantis backs Novak; Tucker tapes ratings
TODAY’s STORIES: Cartel gift-wraps suspects; debt danger; Xi’s three; DeSantis backs Novak; Tucker tapes ratings
1. Mexican Cartel surprises the world with response to kidnapping
Whatever speculation you might have for the actual motivation behind it, a chapter in the kidnapping of four Americans, and murder of two has come to a close. The people behind it have been turned over to the police. At least, that’s what the note left behind by the Cartel said.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
In a scene reminiscent of the old Spider-man cartoons, Mexican cartels turned over five men from their Scorpions splinter group to authorities, with an unlikely apology note written in Spanish by one of their bosses who claimed to be happy they were handing over the men responsible.
The Gulf Cartel (Cartel del Golfo, CDG) left behind the note on a white poster where it tried to apologize for the brutal murders.
‘The Gulf Cartel’s Scorpions Group strongly condemns the events of last Friday, March 3 where unfortunately an ‘innocent’ working mother died and 4 American citizens were ‘kidnapped’ of which 2 died,’ the Spanish-written message read.
The criminal organization, which has been around since the 1930s, claimed the suspects acted on their own.
‘And for this reason, we have decided to hand over those involved and directly responsible for the facts who at all times acted under their own determination and indiscipline and against the rules that ‘The CDG’ has always operated, respecting the life and integrity of the innocent,’ the cartel said. –DailyMail
Maybe it had something to do with the violation of some kind of a criminal honor code. Such things are possible.
But it’s hard to ignore the fact that immediately after this kidnapping and killing entered the public converation, Americans started talking about military response as well as designating these criminal cartels as domestic terrorists.
2. Debt interest is among greatest threats to US
Most of us aren’t equipped to think in terms of billions or trillions of dollars. So when those numbers get thrown around our eyes glaze over and we lose interest. But break it down into a familiar analogy and suddenly the picture comes into focus.
Biden is proposing a budget running near $6 Trillion dollars. Even that makes some assumptions about how much they will be able to fleece from ‘the rich’ to pay for their spending priorities.
McCarthy, as House Leader holds the ‘power of the purse’. Any spending initiatives have to come through him. With the debt limit looming and America about ready to spend her way through that limit, hard decisions will need to be made. McCarthy is calling the $31.5 Trillion debt ‘one of the greatest threats to America’.
The reason is simple if you break it into household terms. Suppose you’ve got a modest income family but you’ve somehow managed to get yourself a credit card with a massive debt limit. You’re often short on cash and you make minimum payments while putting a few purchases here and there on the card every month. At some point, even that break-even minimum payment the credit card asks for will devour income you need to live on.
That is not a sustainable strategy. But it’s what our politicians have been doing for generations. At some point, the music will stop. The only question is — who will be left holding the bag when it does?
3. Chinese President consolidates power with historic third term
While there is no power outside of the CCP that could reasonably oppose Xi from taking a third term, there have always been factions and rivalries within the party that can cause power balances to shift dramatically. President Xi’s own story (and that of his parents) are proof of the whiplash of moving from insider to pariah and then — surprisingly — back to insider again.
But while Xi was on the verge of becoming the first third-term leader since the bloodthirsty tyrant who lead the original revolution, he was quietly consolidating his power, and faction members that could have opposed him were quietly taken off the game board, one way or another.
The endorsement of Xi’s appointment by the ceremonial National People’s Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.
The vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the NPC, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.
Xi, 69, had himself named to a third five-year term as party general secretary in October, breaking with a tradition under which Chinese leaders handed over power once a decade. A two-term limit on the figurehead presidency was deleted from the Chinese constitution earlier, prompting suggestions he might stay in power for life. –AP
4. DeSantis picks fight with Biden over ridiculous Novak restrictions — suggests loophole
The Biden administration is holding the line — for some reason — on restrictions forbidding the unvaccinated tennis superstar Novak Djokovic from participating in a competition at the Miami Open.
We already know the arbitrary date on which Biden plans to drop pandemic restrictions. We know the 5 million illegal aliens were not asked about vax status, nor required to get the jab, when they arrived in America. We know that the vaccine does very little (if anything) to prevent either contracting or transmitting COVID-19. But for wome ridiculous reason, this kind of control is STILL a hill Biden is willing to die on. DeSantis ripped Biden in a letter that was made public.
“It is also not clear to me why, even by the terms of your own proclamation, Mr. Djokovic could not legally enter this county via boat,” DeSantis wrote, citing a proclamation that barred noncitizens from entering the U.S. via the air. “Please confirm no later than Friday, March 10, 2023, that this method of travel into Florida would be permissible.
“Furthermore, even as you enacted a Proclamation on air travel that remains in force to this day, your administration pointedly allowed thousands of unvaccinated migrants to enter our country through the southern border,” the letter adds.
“In sum, the current ‘travel ban’ applied to Mr. Djokovic — and presumably millions of other potential unvaccinated foreign visitors — seems completely ungrounded in logic, common sense, or any genuine concern for the health and welfare of the American people.” –FoxNews
5. Are ratings the REAL reason leftist media objected to Tucker’s tapes?
To liken the revelations of Tucker’s J6 videos to an earthquake in their significance is to undersell it. Media denounced it in lockstep, joining their voices to those of the J6 committee, RINO Republicans, and Schumer’s angry calls from the Well of the Senate that FoxNews bend the knee to his demands and pull Tucker’s J6 footage.
But there may have been another reason for the media to object. For one thing, they knew they couldn’t run the video — even if they HAD the J6 tapes, everyone understands that the legacy media has been marching lockstep with the official narrative and could be reliably counted on not to undercut it. In this case, the official narrative was the one about J6 being the darkest day in US history since the Civil War. That it was a ‘violent insurrection’ in which multiple cops were killed by bad men looking to overthrow a government
But maybe the real reason they objected to Tucker getting a scoop even they understood they could never have made use of is the ratings bonanza that was sure to come with it.
A whopping 4.1 million viewers tuned in to “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Tuesday, while only 1.4 million found the time to watch Chris Hayes on MSNBC. Anderson Cooper over at CNN, meanwhile, was only able to pull in a very sad 577,000. — RedState
The Weird Stuff:
Great cat tests positive for cocaine in Cincinnati
Animal control responded to reports of a leopard in a tree. DNA tests from bloodwork once it was rescued showed the great cat was a ‘serval’ and not actually a leopard, but that gives us some idea about the side and look of this African feline that will top out at around 40 pounds.
It turns out this cat has an owner and a name. The cat’s name is Amiry and was brought to the zoo for treatment for a leg that had become broken during capture. There is no official statement about how the cat might have become exposed to cocaine and the owner is cooperating with authorities who have not been pressing charges despite the fact that Ohio does not permit the lawful ownershp of servals.
DailyMail; AP; FoxNews RedState
