Night of the Hunter

 It's a dog bites man story, but it still needs to be told:

Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.

The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.

An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.

Someone tried to give the laptop with this data a bath:

The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer.

The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner.

Other material extracted from the computer includes a raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who’s admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.

The customer who brought in the water-damaged MacBook Pro for repair never paid for the service or retrieved it or a hard drive on which its contents were stored, according to the shop owner, who said he tried repeatedly to contact the client.

The client didn't apparently want it. Wonder why?

The shop owner couldn’t positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden, but said the laptop bore a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation, named after Hunter’s late brother and former Delaware attorney general.

That would seem to be of interest. But there's more:

Photos of a Delaware federal subpoena given to The Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in December, after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence.

Chris Wray and his gang may not have an interest, but others did:

But before turning over the gear, the shop owner says, he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.

I'd wondered what Rudy had been up to. There' more:

Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, told The Post about the existence of the hard drive in late September and Giuliani provided The Post with a copy of it on Sunday.

But why did it matter?

Less than eight months after Pozharskyi thanked Hunter Biden for the introduction to his dad, the then-vice president admittedly pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk into getting rid of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by threatening to withhold a $1 billion US loan guarantee during a December 2015 trip to Kiev.

“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden infamously bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.

“Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

He sure did. But if you'll recall, President Trump was the one who was impeached over dealings in Ukraine. We don't talk much about that impeachment much any more. Wonder why....

This Masquerade

Our benevolent governor finally pulled the trigger on his latest power grab:

Gov. Tim Walz has issued an executive order mandating mask use for indoor public spaces.

The mandate will take effect early Saturday morning, and requires Minnesotans to wear masks in public indoor gathering areas like stores and restaurants, as well as while using public transportation.

Exemptions are in place for people with medical or mental health conditions that make it "unreasonable for the individual to maintain a face covering."

Children under the age of five are also exempt from the order, though masks are still encouraged for children between the ages of two and five. The order states that "those who are under two years old should never wear a face covering due to the risk of suffocation."

A few thoughts:

• The whole thing is unreasonable. But you knew that.
• We hear incessantly that the "science" says wearing a mask works. But we don't know, really. We're still in the middle of this experience and most of what's proffered as evidence are really assertions. I suspect there are scientists galore who are actually studying these mandates and we'll eventually get the truth about mask efficacy. But we don't have it yet. 
• I don't believe mask mandates are about thought control or whatnot, but I do know the news media are still awfully good at thought control. People are scared to death of COVID and while certain populations have reason to be cautious, most people who actually encounter the virus will not be at serious risk. Wearing a mask will make no real difference either way.
• I struggle with wearing a mask myself, but I doubt my discomfort would constitute a condition that would exempt me from the order. In my mask-wearing experience thus far, my glasses are constantly fogged and I become quite conscious of my breathing, which causes me a significant amount of anxiety. I don't know how my discomfort benefits others, but my social media feed is full of people who believe it does. And you cannot convince them otherwise. And, for that matter, complaining reveals your selfishness.
• You will note, as with all Walz depredations, there is no end date or sunset provision. Walz will require you to modify your behavior for as long as he chooses, whether his requirements are necessary or proper, and he does not need to provide you with a rationale. While I don't imagine he will mandate all Minnesotans wear a ball gag by October, you can't necessarily rule that out.
• I have mentioned it before, but it's worth saying again. When we finally get past all this, the real damage will be to our ability to be neighbors. Fear is corrosive as hell and the notion that your fear justifies the use of force against your neighbors to assuage your fear is poison, flat out. And any mandate is force.

By the way, if the masks don't work, this may be next:

It's for your own good, and we've heard quite enough from you anyway

Just a question

So the Twins decided to take down a statue of their longtime owner, Calvin Griffith, because he apparently said racist things back in the day.

So, I'm curious -- in the greater scheme of things, who (and what) do you suppose hurt black people more. Is it Calvin Griffith and his racist musings, or is it Carl Pohlad and his lending practices?

Bonus question -- do you suppose Pohlad's offspring, who inherited and currently own the team, would be willing to take a serious look at that question?

Rules are for suckers

The invaluable Sean Davis, writing for the Federalist, looks at how the whistle began blowing:

On Monday, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) admitted that it did alter its forms and policies governing whistleblower complaints, and that it did so in response to the anti-Trump complaint filed on Aug. 12, 2019. The Federalist first reported the sudden changes last Friday. While many in the media falsely claimed the ICIG’s stunning admission debunked The Federalist’s report, the admission from the ICIG completely affirmed the reporting on the secretive change to whistleblower rules following the filing of an anti-Trump complaint in August.

The ICIG also disclosed for the first time that the anti-Trump complainant filed his complaint using the previously authorized form, the guidance for which explicitly stated the ICIG’s previous requirement for firsthand evidence for credible complaints. The Federalist reported last week that it was not known which form, if any, the complainant used, as the complaint that was declassified and released to the public last week was written as a letter to the two chairmen of the congressional intelligence committees.

So why does the form matter? Back to Davis:

The ICIG’s claim that it would have been incorrect to perceive a requirement for firsthand information is bizarre considering the previous version of the form clearly stated in unambiguous language that firsthand evidence was required in order for “urgent concern” whistleblower complaints to be deemed credible. It said, in bold, underlined, all-caps text, “FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED”:

Second-hand news

Because the complaint did not allege wrongdoing against a member of the intelligence community (the president of the United States is an elected constitutional officer, not an employee of a statutory agency), did not allege wrongdoing with regard to an intelligence activity (a phone call between two elected world leaders is basic diplomacy, not the execution of a statutorily required intelligence activity), and relied primarily on hearsay rather than firsthand evidence, both the director of national intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel determined that the anti-Trump complaint was not an “urgent concern” under the law and was therefore not required to be transmitted to the relevant congressional committees. In spite of those determinations, the ICIG on its own and after revising its internal guidance and policies regarding firsthand evidence decided the complaint did qualify as an “urgent concern” and forwarded the anti-Trump complaint to Congress.

The rules, in other words, are whatever someone with an animus against a sitting president, says they are. For his part, Donald Trump was tweetin' last night and called this thing what it is:

He's right, you know

I was NeverTrump once. Some of my friends who remain bloggers are still highly critical of Trump for his boorishness. I'm sorry, but aesthetics don't matter at this point. Trump's political enemies cannot succeed. If they do, we don't have a country. It's possible, even probable, they already have. You can't have unelected, unaccountable people changing forms and changing lives. The bureaucracy serves at our pleasure, but they have every reason to believe they rule. And why wouldn't they?

Civil Discourse

A social media message from an old college friend:

Seems reasonable

Back in the 1980s, the individual who posted this suggestion was a nice young woman from a small town about 40 miles from my hometown. As I remember her, she was a little awkward socially, but smart and attractive. She was on the periphery of my social circle and I didn't chat her up a lot, but I was always happy to see her around. Thirty-five years on, she'd prefer I were obliterated, but she is polite about it.

This sort of toxicity doesn't make me angry. It makes me sad.

Just so we're clear

A pro-life Democrat is a contradiction in terms. It is not allowed.

Former Vice President Joe Biden says he now wants to throw out the Hyde Amendment, dropping his long-held support for the measure that blocks federal funds from being used for most abortions amid criticism from his 2020 Democratic rivals.

"If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's ZIP code," he said.

The Hyde Amendment is a four-decade-old ban on federal dollars being used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the woman's life is in danger.

Meanwhile, Ann Althouse makes a great point about Joe Biden's flipping and flopping on the Hyde Amendment (emphasis in original):

I thought the whole point of Biden was that he was the one that other people would vote for. If he squares up his positions with the other Democratic candidates, the Biden's reason for being a candidate collapses.

I was going to say the Democrats are screwing up their "other people" reasoning, but I see that it's pretty clever of all the non-Biden candidates to lure him into surrendering his big advantage. Well played!

The guy on the port side I'm going to be watching is Dan Lipinski, a congresscritter who represents a southwest suburban enclave of Chicago. He's one of the few pro-life Democrats still existing. He got primaried hard in 2018, but prevailed. The same candidate, Marie Newman, is looking to oust him again. Newman has Bernie Sanders's endorsement and Lipinski is getting plenty o' hate (weird parentheticals in original):

According to HuffPost, Lipinski was mentioned at the event as an attendee by Kathy Ireland, who was the emcee. (Normal sentence.) Lipinski was endorsed by the SBA in his last race, and the organization had a “six-figure GOTV effort” that “reached more than 23,000 voters,” according to an SBA press release. Lipinski won his primary race by two points.

But his primary opponent, Marie Newman, is running against him again in 2020, picking up an endorsement from Bernie Sanders yesterday. In April, Politico reported that Newman’s campaign had seen consultants fleeing after the DCCC announced a policy preventing its vendors from working with primary challengers, with the consultants describing the warning they received from the DCCC as “a very clear threat to their ability to do business with” the organization.

The Susan B. Anthony List supports anti-abortion politicians, most of whom are Republicans running against Democrats. (Every dull scold who can’t shut up about Bernie Sanders not being a Democrat—might there be more important and troubling targets for your ire, maybe?) A large section of its homepage currently encourages visitors to read about “President Trump’s Pro-Life Wins.” That page details the organization’s “Largest Pro-Life Grassroots Campaign for Three Election Cycles,” which it says included targeting “pro-life Latino & pro-life Democrat” voters.

In case you still weren't clear, writer Libby Watson drives the point home -- since this is generally a family publication, I'll redact the f-bombs:

After weeks of horrible abortion news, all I can say is: f__k you, Dan Lipinski, you weird weasel asshole. F__k any Democrat that defends him, and the DCCC for not casting him out. Oh, and f__k Kathy Ireland, too.

Have a nice day, I guess.

Man of the Moment

You really should read the transcript of Attorney General William Barr's interview with Jan Crawford of CBS News. I'm going to point out two examples of why Barr is exactly the guy we need at this moment:

Honey badger

JAN CRAWFORD: You're saying that spying occurred. There's not anything necessarily wrong with that.

WILLIAM BARR: Right.

JAN CRAWFORD: As long as there's a reason for it.

WILLIAM BARR: Whether it's adequately predicated. And look, I think if we -- we are worried about foreign influence in the campaign? We should be because the heart of our system is the peaceful transfer of power through elections and what gives the government legitimacy is that process. And if foreign elements can come in and affect it, that's bad for the republic. But by the same token, it's just as, it's just as dangerous to the continuation of self-government and our republican system, republic that we not allow government power, law enforcement or intelligence power, to play a role in politics, to intrude into politics, and affect elections.

JAN CRAWFORD: So it's just as dangerous- So when we talk about foreign interference versus say a government abuse of power, which is more troubling?

WILLIAM BARR: Well they're both, they're both troubling.

JAN CRAWFORD: Equally?

WILLIAM BARR: In my mind, they are, sure. I mean, republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state. And you know, there is that tendency that they know better and that, you know, they're there to protect as guardians of the people. That can easily translate into essentially supervening the will of the majority and getting your own way as a government official.

JAN CRAWFORD: And you are concerned that that may have happened in 2016?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I just think it has to be carefully look at because the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign to me is unprecedented and it's a serious red line that's been crossed.

Emphasis mine. Partisanship is one thing, but Barr points out the real danger, which is the certainty of thought that flows from Orange Man Bad. As I've observed the last 3-4 years, the greatest realization I've had to face is discovering that many of the things I believe weren't, ahem, adequately predicated.

The end of the interview is even more important:

JAN CRAWFORD: But when you came into this job, you were kind of, it's like the US Attorney in Connecticut, I mean, you had a good reputation on the right and on the left. You were a man with a good reputation. You are not someone who is, you know, accused of protecting the president, enabling the president, lying to Congress. Did you expect that coming in? And what is your response to it? How do you? What's your response to that?

WILLIAM BARR: Well in a way I did expect it.

JAN CRAWFORD: You did?

WILLIAM BARR: Yeah, because I realize we live in a crazy hyper-partisan period of time and I knew that it would only be a matter of time if I was behaving responsibly and calling them as I see them, that I would be attacked because nowadays people don't care about the merits and the substance. They only care about who it helps, who benefits, whether my side benefits or the other side benefits, everything is gauged by politics. And as I say, that's antithetical to the way the department runs and any attorney general in this period is going to end up losing a lot of political capital and I realize that and that is one of the reasons that I ultimately was persuaded that I should take it on because I think at my stage in life it really doesn't make any difference.

JAN CRAWFORD: You are at the end of your career, or?

WILLIAM BARR: I am at the end of my career. I've you know--

JAN CRAWFORD: Does it, I mean, it's the reputation that you have worked your whole life on though?

WILLIAM BARR: Yeah, but everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?

Emphasis mine. This is a man who doesn't care if he gets dissed in the Washington Post, or doesn't get to hang at the cocktail parties in Georgetown. He understands there is no value in holding the esteem of jackals. He may look like a cross between John Goodman and Roger Ebert, but he is Shane. This is the man of the moment.

UPDATE: if you weren't certain that Barr is the guy we need, consider this: swamp denizen Jonathan Chait is terrified.

Terrible Beauty and Its Discontents

 If you were to ask any random assortment of film critics and cineastes to provide a list of the top ten films of the 1970s, you would expect to see two films on many lists: Chinatown, directed by Roman Polanski; and Annie Hall, directed by Woody Allen. And for good reason -- they are both outstanding. The trailer for Chinatown only begins to suggest how brilliant it really is:

Not long after Roman Polanski directed Chinatown, he committed a horrible crime, raping a 13-year-old girl. He's been busy escaping justice for the last 40 years.

Woody Allen had a string of successful comedies in the 1970s, but he took his game up a notch with Annie Hall:

Woody Allen is still working today, but he's had a slow slide into persona non grata status, as his ongoing depredations have been aired. Some still defend his honor, but there's not much of it left. His movies come and go and only his tribe really cares -- his last successful movie at the box office, Hannah and Her Sisters, is 30 years in the rear view mirror.

We're over 40 years away from when these films were made. Polanski and Allen are both with us, but they are decrepit. In the years since the release of these films, it has become simultaneously easier and more difficult to see them. We live in an on-demand world and you can stream both at any time, but the chances of seeing either film on the big screen is just about nil in 2019, as few theaters would risk the wrath of a public showing.

I have no brief for either Woody Allen or Roman Polanski; they are creeps and monsters. But ought we pretend their masterworks don't exist? Are there no pleasures to be found in either film? Or does the life of the filmmaker devalue his best work, or even render it worthless?

I was too young to see Chinatown when it came out in the theater, but I saw in on the big screen as a college student and it was a revelation. I did see Annie Hall when it came out; I was in high school and it played in my home town for a long time. I enjoy Annie Hall, but I really love Chinatown -- it's one of my all-time favorite films. I trust the tale, not the teller of the tale. And I don't believe those who say the tale is worthless. Do you?

Terrible Beauty

As it happens, terrible people often produce great things. Once we learn of the terrible deeds of talented people, how do we handle that knowledge.

The matter has come up again with the release of Finding Neverland, the HBO documentary about Michael Jackson and his serial molestation of young boys. I have a lot of Michael Jackson's music in my collection. Am I supposed to stop listening to his music? Writing for The Week, Jeva Lange says yes, but she thinks certain deviant filmmakers are okay:

A boycott can feel like the only course of action when a musician (or a director, or a comedian, or an actor ... ) is credibly accused of something terrible. There is the financial consideration: Who wants their money going to a person, or the estate of a person, who's hurt other people? But a personal boycott is as much driven by one's conscience. In the case of Jackson, I've found it impossible to separate "the art" from "the artist," and the suffering the latter, in all likelihood, inflicted.

But I haven't felt similarly about films directed by two other celebrities accused of abuse: Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.

Why? Because making a film is apparently more of a collaborative effort:

But to take Allen and Polanski as representative examples, it is much harder to justify boycotting films in response to directors' alleged sexual misconduct than it is a solo singer like Jackson. The accentuation of a director as the single "author" of a film is known as auteur theory, and has persisted as the primary mode of interpreting and analyzing movies since the 1960s. But auteur theory has plenty of problems, not the least of which is that it subscribes to the notion of a "lone genius," emphasizing the overriding importance of the director — who, historically, is often a man — over the work of the others involved in the creation of a picture.

Allen, as one example, is a particularly heavy-handed director, often writing and acting in his films. His subject matter is also difficult to grapple with as a moviegoer; as The New Yorker's Richard Brody notes in his own attempt, "There has always been something sexually sordid in Allen's work," which makes watching his films while knowing the allegations deeply uncomfortable. But even Allen's most hands-on and autobiographical films are collaborations, and the final product is consequently the work, also, of the actors, actresses, and technical teams behind them.

This analysis doesn't make a lot of sense; as Lange admits later on, Michael Jackson's best work is certainly in collaboration with Quincy Jones. If you want a sense of how crucial Jones was to Jackson's work, consider another group Jones produced, the Brothers Johnson. I'll post two videos, both from the late 1970s, when Jones was working with the Brothers Johnson and with Jackson:

These are similar songs, with similar structures, and they were both big hits in that era. Whose vision dominates these two recordings?

Quincy Jones is a very rich man because of his collaboration with Michael Jackson, but he also made a lot of money working with the Brothers Johnson. He won't care whether Jeva Lange listens to Jackson's music. But there's a larger question about Jackson, and Allen, and Polanski, and Bill Cosby, and Kevin Spacey, and so many others. Should their work disappear entirely? I'm coming back to that topic next.

Profiles in Cowardice

It is traditional to refer to a bishop as "your excellency." We don't stand much for tradition these days, because, frankly, most bishops aren't excellent in any way. And that goes double for Roger Foys, the bishop of Diocese of Covington. Let's recall the original bleating from this moral colossus:

Condemnation

Now, we get this:

“We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements which were made with good will based on the information we had,” said Bishop Foys in the letter, which was addressed to the parents of Covington Catholic students.

 We're sorry if you were offended? Our statements were made with good will? And based on the information we had? Did it occur to you that you might get more information from the people who were actually there? Did you even talk to anyone from Covington Catholic before you issued your statement?

The next paragraph is closer to the truth, but still well afoul of the 8th Commandment.

“We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it.”

Pardon my French, but how in the hell does a bishop get bullied? You have the staff and the hat, sir. You preside over the high school these students attend. You also have a responsibility to defend not only the faith, but also to provide aid and comfort to the faithful. There's more:

“I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family as well as to all CovCath families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal. Nicholas unfortunately has become the face of these allegations based on video clips,” said Foys. “This is not fair. This is not just.”

Felt abandoned? No, Bishop Foys. Sandmann and everyone else there were abandoned, in straight-up Pontius Pilate style. And your malignant statement was up on the diocesan website for two full days before you shut the website down for "maintenance." You're right about one thing -- it wasn't fair. It wasn't just. And you were responsible for it, along with your superior, Joseph Kurtz, who had this to say:

Since I joined with Bishop Foys in condemning the alleged actions by Covington Catholic students, I apologize for what was a premature statement on my part based upon incomplete information. I very much regret the pain and disruption in the lives of the Covington Catholic community and in the broader Church and society.

We look to our bishops and archbishops to provide moral and spiritual guidance. We expect that guidance to be based on reflection and prayer. Instead, we got a couple of hot takes.

Back to Foys:

Foys’ most recent statement said that it was his “hope and expectation” that this investigation would “exonerate” the students, and that they will be able to move past this ordeal. He also expressed support for Robert Rowe, the principal of Covington Catholic High School. Rowe is a “fine leader,” said Foys, and “those calling for his resignation simply do not know him.”

The buck doesn't stop with the principal, Bishop Foys. It stops with you. There's more:

“I pray that with the grace of God and the goodwill of all involved peace will once again reign in the hearts and minds of our faithful,” said Foys.

For peace to reign, there needs to be justice. And justice requires those in position of authority to do more than offer a liturgical version of "whoops, my bad."

Meanwhile, as you consider the matter of goodwill, consider what happened in Washington, D.C., as the Covington Catholic students were returning to a firestorm and a bishop with a gas can:

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception has confirmed that protesters led by the Native American activist Nathan Phillips attempted to disrupt the celebration of Mass on the evening of Jan. 19.

On Jan. 23, a spokesperson for the Washington, DC basilica released a statement to CNA confirming the previously reported events of Saturday night.

The statement said that while Mass was being celebrated, “a group of approximately 50 individuals attempted to gain entrance to the basilica while chanting and hitting drums.”

I don't know the condition of Nathan Phillips's soul, but based on the available evidence it's difficult to find much goodwill in his actions, either at the Lincoln Memorial or at the Basilica the next day. I would encourage Bishop Foys to continue to pray for Mr. Phillips, but I'd also suggest that Bishop Foys ought to have a resignation letter in the mail to the Pope.

Get your hate on

Victor Davis Hanson, once again, explains the larger forces at play:

[Rick] Wilson was not original in his smear of the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump. He was likely resonating an earlier slander of Politico reporter Marco Caputo. The latter had tweeted of the crowd he saw at a Trump rally: “If you put everyone’s mouths together in this video, you’d get a full set of teeth.”

Was the point of these stereotypes that poor white working-class people who supposedly voted for the controversial Trump understandably ate improperly, did not practice proper dental hygiene, or did not visit dentists—or all three combined?

When challenged, Caputo doubled down on his invective. He snarled, “Oh no! I made fun of garbage people jeering at another person as they falsely accused him of lying and flipped him off. Someone fetch a fainting couch.”

Peel him a grape, too. There's more:

Caputo’s “Garbage people” was also a synonym for the smears that two career FBI agents on separate occasions had called the archetypical Trump voters.

In the released trove of the Department of Justice text communications involving the Clinton email probe, an unidentified FBI employee had texted to another FBI attorney his abject contempt for the proverbial Trump voter and indeed middle America itself: “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS [“pieces of sh*t”].” In fact, Trump in 2016 received about 90 percent of all Republican votes, about the same ratio as won by both recent presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney.

In the now notorious text communications between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, fired FBI operatives on Robert Mueller’s special counsel team, Strzok right before the 2016 election had texted his paramour Page: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.”

If you want to know why the government shutdown, and the plight of our noble public servants as they struggle with temporary cash flow issues, doesn't seem to be getting much traction, you might want to consider Page and Strzok, and their great love for those they serve.

So if you are a self-proclaimed paragon of tolerance, why the hate? Back to Hanson:

These outbursts were all voiced from highly educated elites (Caputo has a journalism degree from the University of Miami, [Donny] Deutsch graduated from the Wharton School, [Sarah] Jeong from Harvard Law School, Strzok received a master’s degree from Georgetown, Wilson attended George Washington University). And all engaged in vicious and cowardly stereotyping of a demographic in a manner that they assumed involved no downside. Rather, the smears were delivered on the expectation of winning approbation from their peers. And they did in twitter-fueled competitions to find the crudest pejoratives.

 Cue the Dobie Gray:

I'm in with the in crowd 
I go where the in crowd goes 
I'm in with the in crowd 
And I know what the in crowd knows

Hatred can wear academic regalia, or it can wear the cloak of professionalism. But at bottom, it's all the same. Hanson:

Those who slander the deplorables and irredeemables assume that they can say almost anything and expect no pushback, given the white working classes lack the romance of the poor and the supposed panache of the elite. A race to the bottom develops in which the more the hatred, the more the clicks and the media exposure. Minority critics expect their own identity politics affiliations to shield them from criticism. Wealthy white elites virtue-signal their disgust for those without privilege as a way of ensuring that those like themselves, who most certainly enjoy privilege, are rewarded with ideological exemptions for it.

Finally, we are learning that the entire idea of political correctness was never much about universal ideas of tolerance of the other, or insistence that language and protocols must not stigmatize individuals by lumping them into stereotyped and dehumanized collective groups.  What we are witnessing, instead, is that it is fine to demonize millions, from their appearance to their purported hygiene and smell to affinities with feces and apes—if it serves political or cultural agendas.

In sum, cultural progressivism is about raw power, not principle.

It's also the realization that, no matter how many degrees and credentials one obtains, we all will revert to junior high social norms when we can get by with it.

Meta Friends

I didn't bother with the television show "Friends" during its initial run, which mostly coincided with the birth and early childhood of Benster. Fearless Maria likes the show and will watch it on Netflix when she has time; as a result of hanging out with her while she's watching, I've seen a few episodes. It's a comfortable enough show, with some wit, and with generally amusing characters played by attractive people. 

Friends isn't especially PC, though, and the cultural minders don't like the show very much. Ann Althouse has an interesting thread going about the show and its critics, but I wanted to endorse the views of a regular commenter on her blog, who goes by the name of  Laslo Spatula:

My suggestion for the show’s popularity today (which ties in with what the show is often criticized for now) follows…

Yes, it reflects what seems to be a less “intense” time. As someone mentioned above, “Happy Days” did this in the 70s.

However, I will posit that this was the cultural sweet-spot where a person could be young and painfully self-aware, but with the absence of the hair-shirt Maoism that has come along since its original run.

Are the characters of ‘Friends’ less self-absorbed than millennials are now? I would say (with a broad brush) not really — but they are self-absorbed in a way that does not involve constant ritual self-castigation — and the fear of others’ shunning — for our’s society’s new thought crimes.

They could be gay-positive, but not have to maneuver through the minefield of today’s ‘fluidity’ and gender-norm fear.

They could be non-racist, but not spend hours self-critiquing why all of their friends were white.

While all were no doubt liberal, politics did not consume their lives: the ‘friends’ were pretty much live-and-let-live — something today’s kids have probably never even experienced.

Today’s young audience can see an America that is not so rawly split in half: again, something today’s kids have never experienced.

I think this is right. And it's really sad, too. "Hair-shirt Maoism" is exactly what we have in 2018 and it's hardly been a Great Leap Forward, either. Live-and-let-live is, increasingly, a dead letter. I see how politics has poisoned people every time I venture into social media. If you watch Friends, you don't see a bunch of people sitting in the same room, staring into their phones. You see people talking to one another. It's certainly a fake world — the characters never seem to have to work much and they have wonderful apartments that they couldn't possibly afford — but it looks even more appealing in retrospect than it likely did at the time.

Who loves ya, baby?

The thing speaks for itself:

John James is a wonderful candidate, but he's likely to fall short in this cycle. I suspect he'll be back, though.

Benster and D Pick Your Games--Bronze Turkey Bowl Edition

Old dude, it is time for the fiercest rivalry in the NCAA. This weekend is the 130th Bronze Turkey Bowl between Knox College and Monmouth College. Knox is of course the superior school, while Monmouth fails in just about every way possible. Don't send your kids to Monmouth, it would be like paying to see Journey.

That is bad. I didn't realize it had come that.

I have to educate people. That's what Knoxers do. Not that I'm biased, of course.

Of course. By the way, how did Knox do against Beloit earlier this year?

We shall not speak of that. I never look back, it distracts from the now. That's my Mindset. By the way, what happened to the Mindset List?

We shall not speak of that.

So we both have something to avoid. But now, watch me work!

Minnesota Golden Elite Rowers of the Boat (-8.5) vs. Illinois Fighting Illini. Have you seen Lovie Smith's luxurious beard? It's a sight to behold:

Woodland animals seek shelter there

So Lovie is clearly a humanitarian. But his Illini are an affront to humanity. Man, they stink! P.J. Fleck does not have a beard, but he's rowed his boat down to landlocked Champaign to get a win. I think the Gophers should win comfortably, as long as Lovie's beard doesn't distract them. Gophers 50, Illini 20.

Lovie may need some help from Thurston Howell III pretty soon. The Illini are a train wreck and while the Gophers are having ups and downs, they'll squash the Illini. Gophers 28, Illini 14.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights (+28) vs. Beloved Wisconsin Badgers. The Badgers have been a disappointment this year, but they still are not out of the hunt for a Big Ten title. Many, many things have to happen, but if the Badgers take care of business, they have a chance. Rutgers is not very good at football. Even the Illini beat them. And so did Kansas. We aren't sure about Lakeland Dental Academy; my guess is that the Rutgers athletic department had the good sense not to schedule the Fighting Floss. Even Alabama is afraid to schedule Lakeland Dental Academy, but that's because Nick Saban isn't known for his consumption of Pepsodent. Badgers 70, Rutgers 10.

Beating the spread, then? Yeah, I think they will. Rutgers is probably the worst D-1 school and while the Badgers are disappointing, they won't screw this one up. Badgers 38, Rutgers 7.

Monmouth Scots (NL) vs. Knox College Prairie Fire, Baby! This is, by far, the most important football game to be played on Saturday. At least in the Quad Cities/Peoria television market. If you have not spent time in the part of the country, you would struggle to appreciate the majesty of this rivalry, which features the serious scholars of Knox versus the drooling mouth-breathers of Monmouth. You already know who I'm going to pick. Knox 200, Monmouth -40.

Based on what I know about this rivalry, I'm not certain that Knox has scored 200 points in the aggregate over the 130-year history of butt whipping they've suffered at the hands of those mouth-breathing Journey fans 12 miles to the west. I can report that I have seen Monmouth lose a football game; they lost at Beloit in 1981, my freshman year. Since then, well... let's just say Monmouth has been romping and stomping throughout the Midwest Conference. And since your beloved Prairie Fire has spent most of its history as a welcome mat, it hasn't been good. Maybe next year, Seabiscuit. Monmouth 49, Knox 24.

Detroit LOLions (+8.5) vs. Minnesota Vikings. And now, time for a Very Special Comment. I promised you I would go after a local radio station last week. And it's true -- KTIS, you really need to play more Blue Oyster Cult. So what if it's not particularly Christian. Here's a start for your new playlist:

"We took you up and put you in the back seat/Dominance, submission, radios appear." What could be more wholesome. Obviously, I'm kidding. KTIS is just fine, as long as they lay off the Slayer. My real target is KFAN. I completely understand that they need to hype up the Vikings, but they really cost the Vikings last week. Whenever I listen to them, they portray the Vikings as an amazing team. It's true -- the Vikings aren't terrible. However, the rapture from Paul Allen is so over the top that the hosts that follow him are forced to clean up after him. I didn't get the sense that the Vikings treated the Saints with sufficient respect last week. And it cost them. Oh my, it cost them. Now come the Lions, the favorite team of KFAN personality Dan "Common Man" Cole. Last week, Common Man suggested this game would be for first place. As it happens, it won't be. It's high time KFAN decided to either be honest with its listeners or just drop the pretense and full-on cheerlead for the Vikings. Dominance, submission, radios appear. But not on the ol' Arbitron. Lions 31, Vikings 10.

I guess I didn't see that parlay coming. Common Man Cole is more of an Al Stewart man, anyway. As for the game, I think the Vikings had better win. Lions are kinda meh. This is a chance for the Vikings to get well. Or not. Vikings 27, Lions 24.

Bear Down Chicago Da Bearz Still Suck (-10) vs. Buffalo Bills. A certain California-based correspondent has informed us that da Bearz are back in first place. Not sure if he should call in to KFAN about it, but whatever. I think the Bears are one of the tougher outs in the NFC, but I'm not convinced they are elite just yet. My reason? The Bears are reliant on their running backs and their defense to keep them in games. Mitchell Trubisky has his moments, but he's still the weak sister quarterback in the division, to say nothing of a hypothetical playoff opponent. Lucky for Da Bearz that Buffalo is coming to town. They are likely to start Nathan Peterman, who is familiar to many Chicago-area fans as Jay Cutler's spiritual successor. This game is going to be hilarious. Nobody Circles the Wagons Like the Buffalo Bills 17, da Bearz 0.

Ya know, I suspect you're wrong about that, young fella. Let's leave it at that. Bears 28, Bills 13.

Glorious Green Bay Packers (+5) vs. New England Cheaters. If you are not excited about this quarterback matchup, apparently you've been avoiding the ESPN hype (which, oddly enough, is even more than my usual level of HYYYYYYYPPPPPPE!) The Packers played well enough to win last week, before Ty Montgomery lost his freaking mind! Can the Packers go into Gillette Stadium and win? Yes. Packers 31, Patriots 28.

Speaking of creepy:

I would like to think the Packers can win. Aaron Rodgers won't be afraid of the Patriots. But I'm not sure they can fix their defense on the fly now that they've sent Ha Ha Clinton-Dix away. If this game were two weeks later, yeah. But there's too many moving parts in Green Bay at the moment. Better days are ahead, but for today... Patriots 31, Packers 28.

Oh, D of little faith! I still believe! Ben out!

Anyone heard?

I was wondering how that investigation of Keith Ellison is going. Although I suspect the real question is where it's going.

In case you'd forgotten

The message from Keith Ellison? MeToo, but not me. But Pepperidge Farm remembers:

On Wednesday afternoon, another of Franken’s Minnesota congressional colleagues, Rep. Betty McCollum, said the growing number of allegations make it “impossible for him to be an effective senator for Minnesota.” Rep. Keith Ellison also called for Franken to resign.

That was December 6, 2017. Now?

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison on Sunday denied an allegation from an ex-girlfriend that he had once dragged her off a bed while screaming obscenities at her — an allegation that came just days before a Tuesday primary in which the congressman is among several Democrats running for state attorney general.

The allegation first surfaced Saturday night from Karen Monahan after her son alleged in a Facebook post that he had seen hundreds of angry text messages from Ellison, some threatening his mother. He also wrote he had viewed a video in which Ellison dragged Monahan off the bed by her feet. Monahan, a Minneapolis political organizer, said via Twitter that what her son posted was "true."

Question for the audience -- should Franken call for Ellison to step down?

Ballad of a shirtless man

From what I've been able to gather about the guy and his works, life is too short to spend much time listening to Alex Jones, so I haven't bothered with him. Based on what I see of him from social media, he seems to be an angry guy who likes (a) conspiracy theories, and (b) to be photographed without his shirt on, even though he appears to be pretty tubby. I will add that nearly every time I see something about him, it's because a lefty has called it to my attention.

But something is happening here, and you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?

All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.

Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”.

Facebook’s removal of the pages – the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the Infowars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page – comes after the social network imposed a 30-day ban on Jones personally “for his role in posting violating content to these pages”.

Is there evidence that Jones has become a more effective propagandist? Has his following increased? If his stuff was okay before, why isn't it now?

This is dumb. If the argument is this guy is too dangerous to have his stuff out there for public consumption, banning him is the best way possible to ensure he'll get even a larger audience. We've known this since the Garden of Eden, which was also well known for shirtless dudes -- forbidden fruit is always going to have an audience. What does Alex Jones know that "they" don't want you to know? This is Conspiracy Theory 101.

It's not a First Amendment issue, because the government isn't stopping Jones from speaking. If you want that sort of thing, you need to check with Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Still, I'm not crazy about the trendline. As long as I'm free to continue ignoring Alex Jones, I'm free. Once we are told his nonsense cannot be considered in any context, we have a much larger problem than whatever he's talking about. Based on what I know, Alex Jones is a bad dude. It's always a bad idea to make a bad dude a martyr.

Divide

When Donald Trump began his campaign in 2015, I was disgusted with him. During 2016, I publicly identified myself as a NeverTrumper. For however long Trump is president, I'll never be very comfortable with him. But he is the president. And many of the people who oppose him are far worse than Trump is. 

John Kass, writing for the Chicago Tribune, makes the salient point:

So, what is bothersome isn’t that reporters and many pundits don’t understand Trump. I really don’t know who does understand him. He wasn’t my choice for president.

But what concerns me are his voters, our countrymen and women. That’s half of our nation. And what bothers me is that I really don’t think many in journalism want to understand them.

Shame them? Yes. Understand them? No.

Pharisees come in many packages. Back to Kass:

But Trump’s voters know what put him in the White House. It wasn’t merely that Hillary Clinton was a lousy candidate. It was that Trump voters detested the crowd that backed her, loathed them; and those voters in turn were viewed as something to be stepped on, to be ridiculed for heresy.

By not wanting to understand them, I worry that journalism blinds itself to something very real, critical and, in the long term, dangerous in our nation: A simmering resentment against the establishment in much of red state America.

And it’s not going away even if Trump goes away.

I've spent the better part of the past 18 months trying to grapple with these issues, especially in this feature. Kass is correct -- from what I see, the concerns of many Trump voters are somehow illegitimate, at least to those who make their living telling us how the world is. And that leads to a bad place. Victor Davis Hanson senses it, too:

Ideologies and apologies accumulated to justify the new divide. In a reversal of cause and effect, losers, crazies, clingers, American “East Germans,” and deplorables themselves were blamed for driving industries out of their neighborhoods (as if the characters out of Duck Dynasty or Ax Men turned off potential employers). Or, more charitably to the elites, the muscular classes were too racist, xenophobic, or dense to get with the globalist agenda, and deserved the ostracism and isolation they suffered from the new “world is flat” community. London and New York shared far more cultural affinities than did New York and Salt Lake City.

Meanwhile, the naturally progressive, more enlightened, and certainly cooler and hipper transcended their parents’ parochialism and therefore plugged in properly to the global project. And they felt that they were rightly compensated for both their talent and their ideological commitment to building a better post-American, globalized world.

One cultural artifact was that as our techies and financiers became rich, as did those who engaged in electric paper across time and space (lawyers, academics, insurers, investors, bankers, bureaucratic managers), the value of muscularity and the trades was deprecated. That was a strange development. After all, prestige cars, kitchen upgrades, gentrified home remodels, and niche food were never more in demand by the new elite. But who exactly laid the tile, put the engine inside the cars, grew the arugula, or put slate on the new hip roof?

In many cases, people who voted for Trump provided the services Hanson describes. My job requires me to market products and services that people who lay tile require. I can't ignore their concerns and stay in business. And those who earn their living in media shouldn't, either. But too often they do. Back to Kass:

Think back on that laughter, on that giggling when she talked of “deplorables.” What followed were the snickers of the clique who get the joke at the expense of those who don’t.

That laughter stuck. And Trump voters took the memory of it to the polls on Election Day. Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump voters overwhelmingly gave him the Electoral College victory.

Now, Democrats are lathered up with the trial of this B-movie villain, this Manafort, whose alleged crimes took place long before he worked a few months for Trump.

Let’s say their Manafort fantasies come true, and he cuts a deal, and he serves Trump to special prosecutor Robert Mueller and the orange presidential head is placed upon a platter.

Then what?

What do you do with the millions who voted for Trump? Mock them into submission? Have them grovel and beg forgiveness before they’re re-educated?

You don’t have to understand Trump. But it’s dangerous not to understand the 63 million who voted for him. They’re not going into exile. They’re here.

And the lesson I've learned? They are me.

In case you've forgotten, or were confused

The invaluable Andrew McCarthy reminds us why Hillary Clinton's homebrew email server was such a horrible idea:

A detailed description of the grossly improper communications system Clinton established would have illustrated that she knew full well the risk she was running. A large percentage of the secretary of state’s job involves classified matters. We are not talking merely about the exchange of documents marked classified but, more commonly, constant deliberations about sensitive intelligence in classified documents, briefings, and conversations. Clinton’s willful concoction of a home-brew communications network — not a harried official’s occasional, exigent use of private email for official business, but her rogue institution of a private, non-government infrastructure for the systematic conduct of State Department business — made the non-secure transmission and storage of classified information inevitable.

Horowitz’s fleeting conclusion that the decision not to charge Clinton was rational and not necessarily motivated by political considerations hinges on the assumption that the intent evidence truly was as sparse as the FBI and Justice Department described it. Of course the decision to decline prosecution was defensible, if not incontestable, if one accepts that false premise. And Horowitz does not just accept the premise; he treats it as a background assumption, writing as if there’s no other conceivable way to look at the case.

What made Clinton’s conduct outrageous was not that national-defense officials emailed each other frequently. That happens in every government agency that deals with national security. The unique fact here was that Mrs. Clinton willfully set up a system in which those communications would transit through and be retained on a non-secure system, outside the government’s layers of protection. That system was extraordinarily vulnerable to penetration by hostile actors, a fact of which Clinton was undeniably, intimately aware. (See, e.g., Clinton’s banning of State Department employees from using private email for official business due to security concerns; Clinton’s citing of an ambassador’s use of private email for government business in firing him; Clinton’s acknowledgment that she “received a security indoctrination concerning the nature and protection of classified information”; Clinton’s memoir, Hard Choices, in which she vividly recounts the thorough training she received about protecting intelligence from the omnipresent threat of espionage, including instruction to leave communications devices on planes with batteries removed during her frequent foreign travel, as well as the need to use an “opaque tent” or “a blanket over our head” when she and her staff read “sensitive material” outside the secure U.S. government setting.)

The primary advantage of being a Clinton, or a Democrat generally, is being given the benefit of the doubt. Even when you destroy evidence, as Ted Cruz reminded us in this parody back in '16:

As usual, there's a ton more at the link. Worth your time.

Read the whole thing

I'm assuming there's another side to this story, but it's a hell of a story:

[Michael Chambers's] nightmare began when a Mississippi social worker, Kyra Reed (who also goes by Kyra Carson), knocked on his door demanding entrance without a warrant. Chambers was never told what the charges were. "She didn't tell me what I was accused of and demanded to interview my 6-year-old daughter without my presence," Chambers told PJM. "I told her that was unacceptable, but she was more than welcome to talk to her with me there without me interfering. She seemed perturbed, but accepted that. She then told me she wanted to search my house," said Chambers. "I told her I had no problem with that, but wanted her to get a court order or a warrant as I am a bit of a constitutionalist and would just feel better having that respected. She was immediately angry. She hopped in her car without another word and drove off."

An American asking for a proper warrant signed by a judge to search his private property is 100 percent within his rights to do, or so we thought. "The next day, I got my daughter early from school and went to the CPS office with her to speak to a supervisor to make sure they understood that I wasn't hiding or attempting elusiveness of any sort," said Chambers. "I allowed the supervisor to look her over and explained my concerns about my insistence on a warrant before the search. I was told that the warrant wasn't a problem to get and that they would do that so we could close the case and finish out the interaction."

But that's not what happened.

"I returned home and got a call from my new landlord, saying that they had contacted him demanding that they be let in," continued Chambers. "He told them that they needed a warrant." CPS did not stop trying to get around Chambers' insistence that his Fourth Amendment rights be invoked. "A different supervisor then called me and once again demanded entry," said Chambers, exasperated. "I again explained that I needed a warrant before I could allow this and reminded her that, according to their own statements, this was easy for them to get and I would prefer that they did." It is perfectly reasonable to ask for a government agency to obtain a warrant before searching someone's home.

"The original worker [Kyra Reed] showed up at my door again, this time with two sheriff's deputies," said Chambers. "She said that she didn't need a warrant and I needed to let her in," he said incredulously. "At this point I became afraid, but I pointed out to her that if she didn't need a warrant, she wouldn't be asking for entry. The officers would simply force me to let her in." Luckily for Chambers, the police officers knew better. "The officers stated that they would not [illegally search his home] as she had no judge's order," he said.

According to Chambers, "She [Kyra Reed] told me that if I made her get a warrant, she would take my child instead." Reed left again, unable to obtain illegal entry. But she didn't stay away. "She returned with another sheriff's deputy," said Chambers. "I answered the door thinking that surely she would have [the warrant] this time and hopefully, we could just get this done and over with. I was instead handed a subpoena to appear in court in the morning and was told that they had taken my child from school." No warrant was ever obtained.

That's a long pull quote, but there's a lot more to the story. You should read it. And if you've been paying attention, you'll not be surprised to learn the same sorts of people who are in full shriek about the current situation at the border are the ones who are trying to take away Michael Chambers's daughter.