We don't talk about New Zealand much in this feature, but we must today. An Australian man, who apparently had accomplices, decided to shoot up a mosque in Christchurch:
Forty-nine people have been killed and at least 20 wounded in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described one alleged gunman, who had Australian citizenship, as an "extremist, right-wing" terrorist.
A man in his late twenties was charged with murder and will appear in court on Saturday morning, police confirmed.
Two other men and one woman were detained nearby and firearms seized, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said.
He said police had determined that one of the people detained was not involved in the incident, and officers were working to understand if the other two were connected.
The shooting was the deadliest in the country's history.
The Daily Mail isn't the most reliable source of news around, but no one does a better job of gathering images, and the images are awful:
Names of other terrorists written on the weapon
You can see images of the gunman's bizarre manifesto at the link; I'll not post them here. We will learn more about this atrocity, and the people who committed it, in the coming days. At this point all I can say is this -- killing people indiscriminately in their place of worship is the mark of cowardice.
If reports are accurate, the academic cheating scandal has been going on for nearly a decade. If that’s the case, it’s highly likely that students who were admitted under false pretenses have completed their educations and have graduated. Once they got there, they (theoretically) did the work required to earn a degree. Do you take away their diploma? Can you? And if you do endeavor to strip a student of a degree he has ostensibly earned, what does it say about the academic rigor of your institution and the value you provide?
When you can buy your way in. And therein lies the resonance of the Varsity Blues case. One of the most reassuring fictions we hear is this: if you work hard and play by the rules, you can go anywhere. That's not true and never has been true, especially where higher education is concerned, but it's not news.
My alma mater is Beloit College. Beloit is a fine school and I received a good education there, as did my classmates. In the higher education world, Beloit is well regarded, but it's down the pecking order a bit from the top liberal arts colleges. In most of the rankings one sees, Beloit travels with schools like Lawrence, Knox, Kalamazoo, Earlham, Wooster, like that. If you were to slot Beloit among Minnesota liberal arts colleges, it would fall behind Carleton and Macalester and would be roughly comparable to St. Olaf, but a touch ahead of Gustavus, although St. Olaf and Beloit are very different places. I have worked with people who graduated from all of the Minnesota schools I've mentioned here and, qualitatively, there's no real difference in the education they received. As regular readers of this feature know, Benster is a graduate of Knox.
So why does it matter? The real value of a college isn't the education as much as it is the opportunities you get from being part of the alumni network. If you are a graduate of Beloit College, your resume will get reviewed, but if you are a graduate of Georgetown, or USC, you might get put higher up on the pile. And if the big boss knows what Hoya Saxa means, it could count a lot down the line. But are grads of these prestigious schools more talented? On the margin, yes, but it's not a sure thing. And that's what gnaws at people.
Andrew Weissmann, the architect of the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, will study and teach at New York University and work on a variety of public service projects, including his longstanding interest in preventing wrongful convictions by shoring up forensic science standards used in courts, the sources added.
If Mueller had no effective supervision against the abuses of the above underlings, why would anyone trust him to supervise his good buddy Weissman, whom he picked to run lead on his probe of Trump? Weissman destroyed the accounting firm Arthur Anderson LLP, which once had 85,000 employees. Thanks to prosecutorial abuse, jurors were not told that Arthur Anderson didn’t have criminal intent when it shredded documents. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction, but it was too late to save the company.
Weissman also “creatively criminalized a business transaction between Merrill Lynch and Enron,” which sent four executives to jail. Weissman concocted unprecedented charges and did not allow the executives to get bail, causing massive disruption to the families before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed most of Weissman’s case.
The most direct way to prevent wrongful convictions is to remove people who pursue them. So it's good news, I guess.
Hollywood actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among 50 people charged in a $25 million college entrance exam cheating scheme, according to court documents unsealed in Boston on Tuesday.
The alleged scam focused on getting students admitted to elite universities as recruited athletes, regardless of their athletic abilities, and helping potential students cheat on their college exams, according to the indictment.
Authorities said the FBI investigation, code-named Operation Varsity Blues, uncovered a network of wealthy parents who paid thousands of dollars to a California man who boosted their children's chances of gaining entrance into elite colleges, such as Yale and Stanford, by paying people to take tests for their children, bribing test administrators to allow that to happen, and bribing college coaches to identify the applicants as athletes.
It's outrageous. You usually have to build a dormitory to get your kid into one of those places.
A year ago, we were approaching the endgame of this college admissions fandango. Fearless Maria had applications into a number of universities, including at least one of the elite schools named in this scandal. We would never be able to prove it, but it's possible that some kid, somewhere, got a slot in Coveted East Coast University that Maria might have received otherwise, were it not for this particular scam. Having said that, she is now attending a good university with a similar academic approach and rigor, only with a less prestigious zip code. And she's having a wonderful experience there.
The issue involved is straight out of Economics 101 -- scarcity. About 23,000 students applied to Coveted East Coast University last year, but only 3000 were admitted. The prize isn't the education, or the experience, or even the sheepskin credential you get at the end. The prize is access to the alumni network, which is the real leg up. If you can find your way into Coveted East Coast University, you might be classmates with a future senator or even President. You won't necessarily know it, but once you're in, it's a good bet. And once you are in, you usually get to stay, even if you like to party and don't necessarily crack the books that much. It's a Golden Ticket.
What's most interesting to me is that the universities aren't in the crosshairs about this, as the linked article from NBC News makes clear:
Lelling stressed that the colleges themselves are not targets of the investigation, which is ongoing. No students were charged, and authorities said in many cases they were kept in the dark about the alleged scam.
I don't believe this. At a minimum, the colleges looked the other way. But it's more splashy to indict an actress than an assistant director of admissions. And the corruption and moral rot in our higher education system runs far deeper than a few B list celebrities trying to buy their daughters into Coveted West Coast University. But that's another post.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quoted Monday as saying she is not in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump, breaking from other Democrats who are eager to exercise their constitutional power to oust the president from office.
In an exclusive interview with the Washington Post’s Joe Heim, Pelosi said Trump is “just not worth it.”
“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said. “This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before.”
Well, that's good to know. Do you think she's actually in control of her caucus, though? She just got rolled by the Big Three on the meaningless anti-hate resolution. She's not going to be able to move much of anything on her agenda, either. How's that working out for her?
Meanwhile, our neighbor Ilhan Omar is continuing to demonstrate her commitment to avoiding hate in her own inimitable style:
Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., told Fox News on Monday that it was "silly" to compare President Trump with former President Barack Obama, adding: "One is human. The other is really not."
Dehumanize your opponents? That should satisfy everyone.
Kurt Schlichter, discussing the antics of the Big Three (AOC, Omar, Tlaib) strikes again:
Not only does it rile up Nancy because these clumsy radicals have stolen the spotlight and made it immeasurably harder to pull off her “We’re sensible” scam on the swing seat suckers but it rankles because none of these debutantes have paid their dues. Nancy and the rest of her leadership worked for years and years accumulating power, rising through the ranks, and when they finally regained power suddenly these newbies who paid no dues but have a lot of Twitter followers showed up and took over the Democrat agenda. That’s got to be infuriating, and you can see it when Nancy talks about them – she can’t say it out loud, but you know what’s running through her mind is, “Who the hell do these upstarts think they are?”
Well Nancy, they seem to be your party’s future.
And if you doubt the heartburn it's causing the "sensible" types who got elected in the "Orange Man Bad" reaches of suburbia, consider Exhibit A, Dean Phillips, as reported in a perceptive profile from Politico Magazine:
Like many rookie lawmakers—at least, those of his moderate tribe—[Phillips] doesn’t want to rock the boat. Those Democrats who flipped red districts campaigned on promises not to clash emptily with Republicans; the irony, of course, is that they arrived in Washington only to realize that the g. reater threat to their jobs is coming from the left flank of their own party.
Phillips approaches the subject like he approaches every other political subject: gingerly. “It’s creating some interesting challenges in that some very young and new members have followings. Two people, their collective following exceeds the entire remainder of the Democratic caucus,” he says, deploying some digital hyperbole in referring to Omar and Ocasio-Cortez. “By definition, they become to the public the voice of a party, they become even de facto leaders of a party.”
As if this point isn’t explicit enough, Phillips adds, “This majority was achieved not by winning in AOC’s district or Ilhan Omar’s district, [but] by victories in districts that had not been terribly favorable to Democrats in the past. … So if there’s a tension in the party, it’s how do you maintain that majority?”
Let's assume, for sake of argument, that Phillips is sincere. In that case, he really should have primaried Erik Paulsen. But that wouldn't have worked, so instead he boarded the crazy train. I have no sympathy for Phillips at all; he should be made to defend his colleague Omar at every turn, or, if he really has the courage of his convictions, he should start denouncing her. But he won't. Dean Phillips wanted to be a Congresscritter in the worst way, and now he has his wish.
Back to Schlichter (emphasis in original):
The moderate Dems will have to turn on the radicals or get turned out. It already happened once as a couple dozen Dems joined Republicans to add an amendment to a gun grab bill that mandated reporting illegal aliens to ICE if they tried to buy a firearm. Ocasio-Cortez and her group opposed it. In fact, the Lil’ Kommissar even threatened to put these rebels on a list to be terminated (via primary now) for daring to *squints real hard* want to report to immigration authorities any illegal aliens trying to illegally buy guns.
Do it, AOC. DO IT!
Nothing like intra-pinko cannibalism. Turn the Democrat Party into the Donner Party. While you consume each other, I’ll be here gobbling cruelty-free, carbon neutral popcorn.
But, of course, there is always a chance that things don’t go the way we hope, and that there are enough historically ignorant suckers in the big blue cities to allow these freaks to take over the levers of power. Sure, the Democrats’ pain is hilarious, but the fact that a major political party has surrendered itself to the zealots of an ideology that has murdered 100 million people is not so hilarious. Maybe if the socialists get in charge here, they won’t bring misery and murder. Maybe the ones in Congress now are so smart and competent that they can actually make this blood-splattered ideology work. But it’s going to be a hard sell for the Dems to get us to bet our lives on it.
If you've study history, eventually you learn about Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's secret policeman. He's infamous for any number of reasons, especially his body count, but the most memorable and terrifying idea of Beria's is embodied in the following quote:
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
It turns out the FBI had a Beria, too:
Top FBI official Andrew McCabe did not just investigate President Trump. As he notes in a little-publicized part of his new book, McCabe even investigated his department boss — then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions — after Senate Democrats asked McCabe to look into allegations Sessions perjured himself during his confirmation hearings when he denied meeting with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign.
Sessions had, in fact, met with the Russian ambassador. He later corrected the record and explained he had forgotten speaking with the official and was not trying to mislead Congress.
Ordering the Sessions probe was “another unprecedented, partisan action that has been forgotten,” said former federal prosecutor Solomon L. Wisenberg, a partner at Nelson Mullins LLP in Washington.
This guy McCabe. And there was more, as Paul Sperry notes at the link:
While it’s widely assumed that the FBI stopped its entire Trump-related Russia investigation once Mueller was appointed in May 2017, McCabe and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed off on the third renewal of the FISA warrant on Page two months later.
And in little-noticed June 2017 testimony, McCabe told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “the FBI continues to investigate … the Russia investigation.”
Explained McCabe: “[T]he FBI maintains a much broader responsibility to continue investigating issues relative to potential Russian counterintelligence activity and threats posed to us from Russian adversaries."
There are laws against groundlessly subjecting individuals to criminal investigation. Former prosecutors say what FBI brass did to the president and his advisers could potentially be a violation of a federal statute known as “deprivation of rights under the color of law.” Other statutes proscribing fraud and false statements also come into play.
It didn't end well for Beria. McCabe won't be facing a firing squad, but he does need to answer for his depredations.
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?
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.
I'm operating under the assumption that Donald Trump is going to tell Congress to piss up a rope when it comes to turning over his tax returns. I also assume the matter is going to be adjudicated, probably all the way to the Supreme Court. And I imagine that, in the end, Trump would win that battle.
Congress has an oversight role and it's crucial, which is why the Founders established it. Unfortunately, for most of my life, Congress has been terrible at it. Watergate was a glamorous time for the Left and those events, now nearly 50 years ago, have permanently deformed our politics. Everyone wants to be Sam Ervin, but there was an important difference then -- an actual, observable crime, the burglary of the Democratic National Committee. This crime was a matter of public record. There's nothing of the sort that has happened while Trump has been in office. That's why the Mueller investigation is likely to be a dry hole, and why the Democrats have now moved on to their Holy Grail of tax returns. I don't know how what Trump's tax returns from ten years ago have to do with his conduct in office, but surely there must be something juicy to give to the Post.
Please understand -- Trump's conduct in office deserves a full measure of scrutiny, as did the behavior of his predecessors. We didn't get much scrutiny of his immediate predecessor, but that's now left to the historians. I don't care what Trump did in 2009. What he does in 2019 matters, but Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff don't care about that.
I have an aunt named Margaret. She was born in 1925. She died in 1943, some 20 years before I was born, from peritonitis. It's been 75 years since she left the world, far too soon. If you Google her name, you get one image, from her high school yearbook, published in 1942, courtesy of the Little Chute (WI) Historical Society:
All ahead of her, until it wasn't
She was a brilliant young woman. Everyone who knew her said as much. She was also a writer. I have always been told she was very good, but I've not read a word she wrote. That will change soon. My cousin came across some old papers of hers, including books of poetry she'd written. He is sending them to me. I am eager to read them and I may share some of it in this space.
Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign heavily relied on those combustible-engine cars — even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her Elmhurst campaign office.
She listed 1,049 transactions for Uber, Lyft, Juno and other car services, federal filings show. The campaign had 505 Uber expenses alone.
In all, Ocasio-Cortez spent $29,365.70 on those emissions-spewing vehicles, along with car and van rentals — even though her Queens HQ was a one-minute walk to the 7 train.
She likes to fly, too:
Instead, her campaign embraced the friendly skies, logging 66 airline transactions costing $25,174.54 during campaign season.
The Democratic firebrand or her staff took Amtrak far less — only 18 times — despite high-speed rail being the cornerstone of her save-the-world strategy.
Most of the flights came after her primary win gave her superstar status and Ocasio-Cortez spent weeks jetting around the country, burning fuel to support her fellow Dems.
Do I blame her for using planes and cars? Of course not. Cars take you exactly where you want to go, almost always on a timetable you choose. That's why people buy them and use them. I live 27 miles away from my office. It's not optimal to live that far away, but I own my home outright and the commute isn't the longest one among my co-workers. When we first moved to our home, I worked in downtown Minneapolis and rode the 4 bus every workday. The 4 bus stop is a block away from my house and some people in the neighborhood work downtown and ride it.
Ocasio-Cortez and her staff have work to do. I think the work they do is absurd and counterproductive, but I don't have any say concerning that, as her presence in Congress is at the behest of her constituents, who apparently like her nonsense. As it happens, my representatives in Congress (Betty McCollum, Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith) are as daft as AOC is, so my views, and the people who agree with me, aren't likely to get an airing in Congress. I do appreciate the New York Post pointing out that AOC's actions don't square with her rhetoric, but it won't change how she operates. One of the great joys of being on the portside is that the rules you require for others don't really apply to you.
University of California-Berkeley officials on Friday arrested a suspect who allegedly assaulted a conservative activist on campus last month.
Zachary Greenberg, 28, was arrested by university police about 1 p.m., after a judge issued an arrest warrant in the Feb. 19 attack on Hayden Williams, the school’s public affairs department said in a statement.
Arrest records from the sheriff’s office say Greenberg was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and attempting to cause great bodily injury.
A 28-year-old man did this. He's apparently not a student, just some dude walking on Sproul Plaza who felt a need to commit a felony because someone offended his sensibilities by existing. You have to wonder what the hell is wrong with a guy who would do this. Here's a mug shot:
Trouble man
Here was a screen shot of him in mid-rage:
Spittle-flecked
If Mr. Greenberg gets sent to prison, it may not change the world in an appreciable way, but it will remind people of an important distinction -- free speech is free, but actions have consequences.
But even if money were no object the total commitment required by the Green New Deal incurs the opportunity cost of not pursuing an alternative strategy based on cheaper energy and climate adaptation -- or even doing nothing. The Green New Deal for example rules out clean nuclear power. It can brook no rivals because solving Global Warming requires every resource we can muster. If we spend trillions on the GND we've no money left for anything else if it bombs.
Organisms in nature typically undertake multiple parallel strategems in order to survive. "The Red Queen hypothesis, also referred to as Red Queen's, Red Queen's race or the Red Queen effect, is an evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate not merely to gain reproductive advantage, but also simply to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms in a constantly changing environment.
Nature attacks and defends on many fronts. But a giant ideological bureaucracy can do what Darwin can't: embark on a single strategy to the exclusion of all else. Nature hedges its bets but only socialism can bet the farm.
When I was AOC's age, I was pretty certain about many things, but in the 25 or so years that have followed, I've been disabused of many notions. The World Wide Web was, in 1993, still in its infancy. Amazon, the company that has essentially taken over vast sector of retailing in this country, had not yet opened its portal, so to speak. The term "brick and mortar," to the extent it was a term, was not a pejorative. I was working for a large retail organization then and hardly anyone there could have envisioned what has come to pass since then.
Perhaps events will unfold as AOC envisions. But are you willing to sign up for her vision?
I turned off commenting on a thread that seems to have gotten out of control. I've never done this before, but it seemed appropriate. I have not deleted any of the comments, although I always reserve the right to blow away comments that don't meet our minimal standards.
What are the minimal standards? Don't be racist, don't be ad hominem, and don't threaten anyone.
Remember, everyone who is a listed contributor to this blog is a member of my immediate family. We're nice people, we really are, but don't crap in our cornflakes.
I also made this blog secure (no more http, it's https). I should have done that a long time ago. The change should not change the functionality of the blog and if you have a blog of your own (and many of you do) and link to this feature, those links should still work.
As far as I can tell, there's not easy way to block abusive commenters on the Blogger platform, although I have a question in to tech support about it. The good news is that, although this blog began over 13 years ago, it's not been necessary to do it. I do have pretty good spam filters, so that's rarely an issue. I will find out how to do it, however.
I appreciate your support and loyalty to this enterprise, and your friendship.
I can tell Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress yesterday was ineffective, because my social media feed tells me as much. Had anything that mattered come to light, there would be rejoicing among my old college friends and the other angry Leftist virtue signalers in my acquaintance. But I'm mostly seeing cat photos instead. Better luck next time!
Talks between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un collapsed Thursday after the two sides failed to bridge a standoff over U.S. sanctions on the reclusive nation, a dispiriting end to high-stakes meetings meant to disarm a global threat.
Trump blamed the breakdown on North Korea’s insistence that all the punishing sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Pyongyang be lifted without the North committing to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.
“Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump explained at a closing news conference after the summit was abruptly cut short. He said there had been a proposed agreement that was “ready to be signed.”
“I’d much rather do it right than do it fast,” Trump said. “We’re in position to do something very special.”
Doing it right is probably impossible, because doing it right would likely mean the end of Kim's regime, at least down the line. If North Korea opens up, the 70 years of privation becomes obvious to those who have suffered it. Kim knows this. Those Samsung phones and Hyundais their cousins drive south of the DMZ will be hard to explain away.
Is it a failure to walk away? No, of course not. If there's not a deal to be made, don't make one. Reagan walked away from Gorbachev and kept the pressure on the Soviet Union. Things changed. It's a long train ride back to Pyongyang and I wouldn't be surprised if Kim hears from his Chinese enablers about what happened before the train reaches its destination. I doubt this show is even close to over.
It's not complicated. If you are willing to vote for infanticide, your claims about protecting children mean nothing. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith? You're ghouls, both of you.
"Like I just introduced the Green New Deal two weeks ago, and it's creating all of this conversation. Why?" Ocasio-Cortez said. "Because no one else has even tried. Because no one else has even tried."
"So people are like, 'Oh it's unrealistic. Oh it's vague. Oh it doesn't address this little minute thing,'" Ocasio-Cortez continued. "And I'm like, 'You try. You do it. Cuz you're not. Cuz you're not. So, until you do it, I'm the boss.' How bout that?"
So who is our favorite Congresscritter most like?
Or maybe this?
Or is it this?
Or, ultimately, is it this?
If you said it's most like Mussolini, take the cannoli. You doubt that? Consider her response to John Cornyn:
No, Hallmark cards have more thought behind them than your response
Two Trump tweets from yesterday. Read the bottom one first, then the top one:
Good if true
We don't talk about tariffs much, but they are a big issue for a lot of companies, including one that's near and dear to me. While I understand why Trump has pursued tariffs in general, the uncertainty concerning their duration and overall effect has caused a lot of businesses to struggle with their short- and medium-term planning. If you currently source a product from China, will a tariff apply? For the whole product, or just certain components? If you source the product elsewhere, can the new companies deliver a product of comparable quality to what you're currently getting, at a price that makes sense? If the tariff goes away, do you re-establish your business relationships? Or could the tariffs come back? And if you keep your products in China and pay the tariff, do you pass along the cost to your customers? In whole, or in part?
A company's future can hinge on such questions. I am hoping the answers become more clear in 2019.
I remember watching old episodes of the Monkees television show in reruns, usually on Saturday mornings, but I was a bit too young to see them when they originally aired in the 1960s. Even if you've never seen an actual episode, the music was ubiquitous and you can easily hear a Monkees song any day on an oldies station.
Peter Tork was generally the bassist for the group and would occasionally show up on keyboards. Tork died yesterday, at the age of 77. Tork and guitarist Mike Nesmith were both talented musicians on the L.A. scene; Tork hung out a lot with Stephen Stills and it wouldn't be difficult to construct an alternate history in which Stills passed his screen test and had been a Monkee instead, with Tork becoming a member of Buffalo Springfield.
The Monkees were, as a band, pretty good. They had some of the era's best songwriters at their disposal and often had the services of the Wrecking Crew, the great L.A. session musicians, to help fill out their sound. It's easy to bag on the Monkees for being the creation of television producers, but their music is really a triumph of craft. Consider one of their better songs, "Pleasant Valley Sunday," written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin:
After a while, the Monkees tired of being mostly actors and eventually started doing more of the actual performing. And they did some nice work later in this later period as well:
Was it brilliant? Not particularly, but it was always tuneful and fun. That's an element of 60s music that's often forgotten; even the schlock was often well-done. A contemporary of the Monkees who had a lot of hits in the era was Johnny Rivers. He did a lot of covers, including this cover of a Willie Dixon blues standard, which includes some fun musicianship and a weird milieu of beautiful California girls carrying odd cargo:
At least in my own mind, I tend to add another group of 60s hitmakers to this collection. That would be Tommy James and the Shondells, who came out of Michigan and hit the charts repeatedly, always pressing the fun button:
This music lives on, and will continue to live on, because craftsmanship has its virtues.
The invaluable John Kass, reminding us of how pursuing #Justice4Jussie leads to other injustices:
Something important has been lost in the embarrassing saga of Jussie Smollett, the tuna fish sandwich-loving actor and anti-Trump activist, and those muscular Nigerian brothers.
And I suppose it’s easy to lose what’s important with all the panic and intersectional hatred and liberal identity politics gone bad in this Smollett story.
What’s been lost is this:
I’m told that two dozen detectives were assigned to the Smollett case.
That's a lot of detectives. And while one can't be 100% sure that these detectives might have been assigned elsewhere had not the now-indicted Smollett decided to get himself some sweet stolen victim valor, the mismatch of resources has a cost beyond the waste of the investigation. Back to Kass:
A few weeks ago, after Smollett began telling his tale — in which he’s the hero fighting oppression and hatred — a 1-year-old child was shot in the head.
It looked like a street gang may have been targeting his mother. She’s been shot before. The child, Dejon Irving, is on life support.
I don’t think there were two dozen detectives assigned to Dejon Irving’s case. But he’s not a star to be used by politicians in pursuit of power. He’s not a symbol.
Politicians don’t tweet his name. He’s just a little boy from Chicago, shot in the head.
What happened to Dejon Irving is real. We don't talk about what's real these days.
'Cause you've given up your sanity For your pride and your vanity Turns your back on humanity And you don't give a da da da da da
Which brings us back to Chicago and Jussie Smollett. It's becoming increasingly clear that the hate crimes he reported were fabrications of his own. While that's a problem, there's a larger problem -- in our time, certain hatreds are essentially sanctioned. John Hayward, as always, cuts to the chase:
Why wouldn’t other hoaxers expect similar “fake but accurate” defenses when their phony hate crime reports fall apart? They know they will be given virtually limitless credit for good intentions. The worst media action line they have to fear is: “Okay, maybe everyone involved was wrong and we can all learn something from this teachable moment.” With a little luck, they will be able to argue they were forced into faking a hate crime by the terrible climate of fear President Donald Trump has created.
We can take a step toward fixing that by throwing the book at Jussie Smollett if he’s found guilty of faking a hate crime, which absolutely must be considered as much of a hate crime as the incident he faked. Otherwise, we are reinforcing all of the awful forces that inspire people to invent phony hate crimes, including the poisonous totalitarian idea that some groups are incapable of hatred, while others deserve to be hated, so slandering them is not a serious offense.
Emphasis in the original. I don't pretend to understand the demons inside of Jussie Smollett, but based on the available evidence, his pride and vanity led him to turn his back on humanity. Back to South:
They're gonna teach you how to meditate Read your horoscope, cheat your fate And further more to hell with hate Come on and get on board
We give sanction to bad ideas and we're surprised that such sanction leads to bad behavior. Getting on board is more important than thinking. Hate is an incentive right now.
If I listen long enough to you I'd find a way to believe that it's all true Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced While I cried But still I'd look to find a reason to believe
The national outrage that simmered after actor Jussie Smollett said he was attacked by people shouting racial and anti-gay slurs was fueled in part by celebrities who spoke out loud and strong on social media.
But the outrage has now been replaced by surprise, doubt and bafflement as the singers, actors and politicians who came out in support of the “Empire” star struggle to digest the strange twists the case has taken. Some conservative pundits, meanwhile, have gleefully seized on the moment.
The narrative that just a week ago seemed cut-and-dry has become messy and divisive — and it’s all playing out again on social media.
Seizing, or pouncing? I can never be sure. But c'mon, it was so believable:
Smollett, who is black and gay, said he was physically attacked last month by two masked men shouting racial and anti-gay slurs and “This is MAGA country!”— a reference to the Make America Great Again slogan used in President Donald Trump’s election campaign. Smollett said the attackers looped a rope around his neck before running away as he was out getting food at a Subway restaurant.
I lived in Chicago for five years. I remember things like this happening all the time. Well, at least the racial slurs, but the noose is a little edgy. But there's a pattern to the reportage:
In a statement on Saturday, the Indigenous Peoples Movement identified the man in the videos as Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder, a veteran and the former director of the Native Youth Alliance, a group that works to ensure that traditional culture and spiritual ways are upheld for future generations. Mr. Phillips also holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans in Arlington National Cemetery, the group said.
Mr. Phillips could not be reached for comment on Saturday. He told The Washington Post that he noticed the teenagers taunting participants at the Indigenous Peoples March.
“It was getting ugly, and I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial,’” Mr. Phillips told The Post. “I started going that way, and that guy in the hat stood in my way and we were at an impasse. He just blocked my way and wouldn’t allow me to retreat.”
The Texas restaurant company which banned a customer after an employee’s story of a receipt scrawled with a racial epithet went viral said that it had parted ways with the employee and learned that the story was made up.
“We have learned that our employee fabricated the entire story,” Terry Turney, the chief operating officer of Saltgrass steakhouses, said in a statement. “Racism of any form is intolerable, and we will always act swiftly should it occur in any of our establishments. Falsely accusing someone of racism is equally disturbing.”
The incident unfolded earlier this month when Khalil Cavil, a 20-year-old waiter at a Saltgrass outpost in Odessa, Texas, posted an image to Facebook that showed a $108 bill with zero on the tip line, and “We don’t tip terrorist,” written in ink at the top.
The morning of December 9, 2017, launched one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have “independently confirmed” this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here).
There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before. Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.
[Lara] Logan said that many journalists have abandoned consistent standards in reporting when it comes to the Trump administration.
“Standards are out the window, I mean you read one story after another or hear it and it’s all based on one anonymous administration official, former administration official,” she said. “That’s not journalism, that’s horses**t.”
“Responsibility for fake news begins with us,” she argued. “We bear some responsibility for that, and we’re not taking ownership of that and addressing it. We just want to blame it all on somebody else.”
The MSM is a faith-based initiative. Christians look for evidence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit for the MSM is confirmation bias.
Or did something else happen that drove the [Northam] story out of the news? Was it just big news — Trump's "emergency"? Or something that specifically offset the Northam story — maybe the Jussie Smollett story: Maybe some people don't want to think about why Northam made himself into a fake black man if we're worried that Jussie Smollett made up some fake white men.
As Ilhan Omar’s political star was rising last year on her way to becoming one of the first Muslim women in Congress, several Minnesota Jewish leaders invited her to talk privately about past statements they considered anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Gathering at a state senator’s home, they hoped to get a better sense of her views while expressing their concerns.
Most came away dissatisfied by what they heard.
Those concerns were confirmed this week when Omar suggested on Twitter that members of Congress support Israel for money, igniting a bipartisan uproar in Washington that included criticism from President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“There seems to be a pattern developing which indicates more of an attitude than mistakes,” said Ron Latz, the Democratic state senator who hosted the meeting. “And that’s what’s most troubling. I mean, I’m grateful that she seems to be willing to be engaged in conversations with the Jewish community, but she doesn’t seem to be learning from those conversations.”
Latz is correct about almost nothing, but he's accurate about Omar. So Latz ought to primary Omar. So should half the ambitious DFL pols in CD-5. Start cleaning up the mess.
Disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood after an investigation found sex abuse allegations against him were credible, the Vatican said Saturday.
The church is penalizing McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Newark, New Jersey, with "dismissal from the clerical state," it said in a statement.
He will not be able to appeal the decision.
The canonical investigation found that he was guilty of "sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power." He was also found guilty of "solicitation" during confession.
McCarrick and his henchmen did incalculable damage. The damages remains to this day. The full accounting continues. We need to know it all.
She ran out through the back door Screamin' in the night She said I was the devil I didn't treat her right The man down at the station Said "That was her for sure"
Now that train don't stop here anymore
-- Los Lobos
Especially true when the devil is in the details, as Joel Kotkin explains about AOC's high-speed rail fantasies in City Journal:
In her bid to kill the internal-combustion engine, Ocasio-Cortez apparently seeks to eliminate both cars and planes. Her favored solution for cross-continental travel: a massive network of high-speed trains.
Some of this must seem fanciful even to the democratic-socialist heartthrob from the Bronx. In contrast with Western Europe, where several high-speed rail lines operate, the United States has huge distances between cities; its average population density is between three and ten times less compact than that of the European continent. Even on the California coast, a 450-mile high-speed rail trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco would have taken nearly four hours, compared with a one-hour plane ride. Imagine taking high-speed rail from Los Angeles to Chicago: a three-hour trip by plane becomes a 15-hour or longer trek across vast, empty spaces. During that time, the traveler would cover more high-speed rail mileage than the current length of the entire French system.
How valuable is your time? If you want, or need, to go a long distance, it's expensive, but most people can afford a flight if they have to. We're in one of the best times of the year to travel; as I write this today, you can get an economy round-trip ticket from Chicago to Los Angeles for under $110. High-speed intercity rail doesn't work even in the places it's purported to work, unless you tax the snot out of the alternatives:
Of the many high-speed rail lines built in the developed world, only two (Tokyo-Osaka and Paris-Lyon) have ever been profitable, and in each case highway tolls for the same routes exceed $80 one-way, making high-speed rail in those cases an economical consumer choice. California, the green heart of the resistance, has met fiscal reality; reality won.
Reality isn't what AOC is all about, but that ain't stopping her. Mitch McConnell will, though, at least for the moment.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that he wants the Senate to vote on a massive plan to fight climate change.
"I've noted with great interest the Green New Deal, and we're going to be voting on that in the Senate," McConnell said at a Senate Republican news conference. "I'll give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal."
Don't ask, don't tell. That would be my guess. Why wouldn't you want, say, Amy Klobuchar, to go on record with how she feels about this aspect of the proposal:
It also immediately provoked controversy. While some environmental advocates applauded the plan's grand scope, experts said the plan's aim to get to net-zero carbon emissions in 10 years seemed unrealistic.
Critics also pounced on a blog post from Ocasio-Cortez's office — now taken down — that said the policy assures "economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work."
Those critics are always pouncing. As for Amy Klobuchar, apparently she is down with it:
The resolution has amassed significant but by no means widespread support on Capitol Hill — there are 67 co-sponsors in the House and 11 in the Senate, including several current or potential presidential contenders: Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar.
Taking care of people who are unwilling to work is likely a big deal to Klobuchar, given the large number of people who are unwilling to work for her.
So we get this today from the Diocese of Covington:
See if you can see what's missing
You might remember this notice from a few weeks back:
Categorical
So, what about those actions? And what about the underside of the bus, where Bishop Foys threw those kids he now lauds? Read through the letter from Foys. See if you can find the apology.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared Tuesday there "isn't a path" for completing the state's plan for a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles, yet his office insisted he is fully committed to building such a project.
Newsom, delivering his first State of the State address, said he'd shift his focus to completing just a 171-mile segment of the line already under construction in the state's Central Valley. The project is key to the economic vitality of the state's agricultural heartland, he said.
So what go-to destinations are on the path?
Democratic state Sen. Anna Caballero, who represents part of the Central Valley, called the shift to a line only from Bakersfield to Merced "disappointing." But she said she hopes to see that line connected to other state hubs at some point.
"People need to see it move to really feel like it's important," she said.
Move what? Produce? Hey, you can stop in Fresno, too. I'm sure that's appealing. But argument by assertion is always king among California politicians:
Newsom rejected the idea that his plan would create a "train to nowhere" and said building in the Central Valley would help revitalize the economically depressed region.
Sad and predictable. Awful dissonance with his party's "Green New Deal."
Yes, that. High-speed rail from coast to coast. Ground those airplanes. Trains are better, you see. Sure, you can travel from Minneapolis to St. Louis if you'd like. I'm sure you don't mind going to Chicago first. Gotta save the planet and all that. You understand, right? Well, you'd better. Get on that train.
It’s called “Alinsky Rule No. 4,” pals. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” Cue the sad trombone. Somewhere, Brett Kavanaugh is laughing into his Budweiser.
I know I am, except it’s Dos Equis.
But this hilarity does bring up something serious we need to consider on the conservative side. We need to prepare for the next time some Republican gets besieged by SJW witch-burners, and be ready with our response to their unwarranted demands for his/her/xir’s head.
Our response should be, “Go pound sand.”
Now, that’s not necessarily the phraseology we should use. Mine would be more colorful, and anatomically challenging, but the point is the same. They don’t get a head for their wall. They don’t get to win. Not over silliness.
And the main point? Fair game might require recent behavior:
So when one of ours has some bonehead maneuver from his frat days revealed by eager Dems smelling blood, that’s what we should say to the calls for resignation and social ostracism. “No.”
Really terrible stuff, by someone of age, done recently? Perhaps a different story. But this bizarre, unspoken assumption that someone can’t change and grow up in a third of a century – especially when the evidence is that he or she changed and grew up in a third of a century – is profoundly destructive. It’s designed to allow the SJWs unlimited power to ex post facto decree someone unfit for society at their whim. They will scour a target’s past, decide something regrettable is unforgivable, and demand his or her head. And you just know that the GOP establishment Fredocons are willing to give it up without a fight.
Online mobs only have power if we allow them to have power. Joining one is, often enough, malicious. Why would you write a negative online review of a restaurant you'll never eat at, anyway?
A story: at this point in 1984, I was editor of The Round Table, the student newspaper at Beloit College. And in that role I did some things as editor that I would never do today, including running a critical Letter to the Editor without fixing any of the punctuation or grammar errors the writer made. While I thought the criticisms the writer provided were baseless (I still do), that was a crappy thing to do. But 20-year-olds do crappy things.
So should we give SJWs and their liberal enablers a pass? No. But we should not take their bleatings seriously. And I do recommend Alinsky Rule Number 5:
5. “Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.”
And suggesting that these harpies get a life is not only a proper application of Rule Number 5, it's good advice.
I wrote Thursday about Saint Amy Klobuchar and her penchant for petulance. There was more piling on yesterday, from the always-dubious Buzzfeed, with Vanity Fair serving as a relayer to a larger audience. You can take it for what's it's worth. But there's a more interesting question. It's clear someone is orchestrating all this. Who do you think it is? And why?
Give me your guesses in the comments. There are more suspects than you'd find on the Orient Express.
Most readers of this feature are old enough to recall a late 80s comedy, "A Fish Called Wanda." In a crucial scene, the titular character Wanda (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) explains to her dim compatriot Otto (played by Kevin Kline) that many of the things he believes are stupid (clip is NSFW):
Wanda Gerschwitz: Let me correct you on a couple of things, okay? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not every man for himself. Otto West: You read... Wanda Gerschwitz: The London Underground is not a political movement. Those are mistakes. I looked 'em up.
We're now 30 years on. We now have an Otto West-like character stalking Capitol Hill. Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is known far and wide as AOC. She would like to offer (but would ultimately like to force) America to take on a Greeen New Deal. And she needs to be corrected on a couple of things, so Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal gets to be Wanda:
It is for starters, a massive plan for the government to take over and micromanage much of the economy. Take the central plank, its diktat of producing 100% of U.S. electricity “through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” by 2030. As Ron Bailey at Reason has noted, a 2015 plan from Stanford envisioning the goal called for the installation of 154,000 offshore wind turbines, 335,000 onshore wind turbines, 75 million residential photovoltaic (solar) systems, 2.75 million commercial solar systems, and 46,000 utility-scale solar facilities. AOC has been clear it will be government building all this, not the private sector.
Neither Aristotle, nor even the technocrat Belgians, would go for that. But there's more:
And that might be the easy part. According to an accompanying fact sheet, the Green New Deal would also get rid of combustion engines, “build charging stations everywhere,” “upgrade or replace every building in U.S.,” do the same with all “infrastructure,” and crisscross the nation with “high-speed rail.”
Buried in the details, the Green New Deal also promises government control of the most fundamental aspects of private life. The fact sheet explains why the resolution doesn’t call for “banning fossil fuels” or for “zero” emissions across the entire economy—at least at first. It’s because “we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast” (emphasis mine).
This is an acknowledgment that planes don’t run on anything but fossil fuel. No jet fuel, no trips to see granny. It’s also an acknowledgment that livestock produce methane, which has led climate alarmists to engage in “meatless Mondays.” AOC may not prove able to eradicate “fully” every family Christmas or strip of bacon in a decade, but that’s the goal.
There's nothing green about any of this, of course. It's straight up feudalism shot through with Luddite nonsense. And one can guess that AOC won't be giving up her air travel, even as she demands we all queue up for the Underground. Back to Strassel:
Finally, the resolution is Democratic math at its best. It leaves out a price tag, and is equally vague on what kind of taxes would be needed to cover the cost. But it would run to tens of trillions of dollars. The fact sheet asserts the cost shouldn’t worry anyone, since the Federal Reserve can just “extend credit” to these projects! And “new public banks can be created to extend credit,” too! And Americans will get lots of “shared prosperity” from their “investments.” À la Solyndra.
A government-guaranteed job. The bill promises the United States government will provide every single American with a job that includes a “family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and a pension.” You can imagine that those left in the private sector would be funding these through some unspecified “massive” taxation. On the bright side, when you’re foraging for food, your savings will be worthless.
Free education for life. GND promises free college or trade schools for every American.
A salubrious diet. The GND promises the government will provide “healthy food” to every American (because there are no beans or lettuce in your local supermarket, I guess).
A house. The GND promises that the government will provide, “safe, affordable, adequate housing” for every American citizen. I call dibs on an affordable Adams Morgan townhouse. Thank you, Ocasio-Cortez.
Free money. The GND aims to provide, and I am not making this up, “economic security” for all who are “unable or unwilling” to work. Just to reiterate: if you’re unwilling to work, the rest of us will have your back.
None of this can work. Nor will it go anywhere, because we're not about to turn over the country to a woman who was a bartender a few months ago. But it's frankly alarming that she hasn't been laughed off the stage. Don't call her stupid, apparently.
At least three people have withdrawn from consideration to lead Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s nascent 2020 presidential campaign — and done so in part because of the Minnesota Democrat’s history of mistreating her staff, HuffPost has learned.
Klobuchar, who plans to make an announcement about a potential presidential bid on Sunday in Minneapolis, has spent the past several months positioning herself to run for president. She’s beloved in her state as a smart, funny and personable lawmaker and has gained national attention for her lines of questioning at high-profile hearings.
Beloved is certainly overstating the case, but read on:
But some former Klobuchar staffers, all of whom spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity, describe Klobuchar as habitually demeaning and prone to bursts of cruelty that make it difficult to work in her office for long.
It is common for staff to wake up to multiple emails from Klobuchar characterizing one’s work as “the worst” briefing or press release she’d seen in her decades of public service, according to two former aides and emails seen by HuffPost.
It's always been tough to get anyone in the Minnesota media to say anything untoward about Klobuchar, who has always worn her father's Star Tribune career as a protective shield. But she won't be afforded such courtesies elsewhere. So how will her courtiers here in Minnesota greet this report? Guess, just guess:
But there's a controversy to the controversy, with some observers — including Tim Dickinson of the Rolling Stone — wondering if the reporting of such rumors reflects a sexist double standard:
White Knight
The views of Tim Dickinson are probative, of course. And if "you've never read this story about a male politician," whose responsibility is that? Unless you are involved in the media yourself, you only read what other people write, and what their editors and publishers send to press. The last time this issue came up was in Politico, which ran this handy chart:
Men and women
You see Saint Amy at the top, but you see men on the list as well. It's especially interesting that the two Republicans on the list are women often accused of being RINOs, but that's another post.
Unless you are actively involved in politics, or are rich enough to buy their attention, chances are you don't really know much of anything about the politicians who purport to represent you. You don't know but you've been told how smart, funny, and personable Amy Klobuchar is. We're more likely to learn the truth about who she really is now, because people who aren't in her thrall will now begin to tell the tale.
Didn't bother with the State of the Union address last night, since it's easy enough to get plenty of reactions from both sides of the aisle. Beyond that, I had dishes to dry and a chance to talk with Fearless Maria instead, which seemed like a better use of my time, especially following an awful 2-hour commute home through the latest snowstorm. Nonetheless, a few observations:
Wearing white was supposed to be sort of political statement, but in the age of Photoshop it's too easy to manipulate the images. I saw at least a dozen pictures where the congresscritters in question were given Klan hoods. Dumb.
It also sounds like Amy Klobuchar is going to run for president. I'll have more to say about that when she makes the formal announcement, but she really ought to understand one thing -- no one south of the Iowa border gives a damn who her father was, nor does anyone east of the St. Croix, for that matter. She'll have to stand on her merits, and there aren't many of them.
I'm really enjoying the knife fight among the Democrats in Virginia. What an embarrassing lot.
Best news of the day? Jason Rarick won the special election for the Minnesota Senate seat, taking away a seat that has been in DFL hands since Father Hennepin trod the land, thus ending the Lourey family fiefdom. Republicans now hold a 35-32 edge in the upper chamber, which will make a big difference in holding off Tim Walz and the Metrocrats in the House.
I don't understand how anyone who claims to be conservative needed to hear Democrats openly endorse infanticide in order to realize Dems are extremists on abortion and no one with respect for life can vote for them in good conscience.
This stuff about making the infant comfortable while you decide whether or not to kill her isn't a bolt from the blue. It's not a shocking aberration. It's the logical conclusion of Democrat abortion politics. It's not that much different than stuff Obama said about abortion.
It should have been obvious as all hell to any reasonably engaged conservative -- and most definitely to all professional pundits -- that Democrats are all-in on late-term and born-alive abortion.
Once you accept the premise that someone else's life is expendable, any endpoint is arbitrary. Ralph Northam may get drummed out of the governor's chair in Virginia because he did some blackface 35 years ago, but the issue with him isn't his early adult deportment, but rather the disregard for others that he evinces with his statements on infanticide. There's more, though:
Passive conservatives long ago proved they don't understand GOP voters. This infanticide shock shows they don't understand Democrats either. They don't appreciate the value of what they throw away when they toss Dems electoral victory to score points in GOP power plays.
Democrats are not your friends, kids. They hate you. Erik Paulsen thought he could keep his distance from people he found distasteful and that his political opponents would give him credit for goodwill. Instead, he got his butt handed to him.
You don't have to like Trump. Really, you don't. But understand this -- if you're a Republican politician or pundit, you'll get nothing for your virtue signaling. You will not be treated better in captivity. The Ralph Northams and Ilhan Omars of the world don't give a damn about your bien pensant posturing. They may or may not make you comfortable, but in the end they will decide and the decision will not be in your favor.
Freezing rain this morning. Yes, it's about 55 degrees warmer than it was a few days ago, but Mother Nature is still trying to kill us. So shake down the thunder:
The Super Bowl was dull. Just about everyone (with a few exceptions) is tired of the New England Patriots, but it must be said -- they cracked the code on the Rams. Considering half the league is either already planning to, or will begin shortly, emulating the Rams, Bill Belichick's master class will make things interesting for next season. I hope Matt LaFleur was watching closely in Green Bay.
Ralph Northam now says that yearbook photo of his isn't him, although he did pick out all the other images on his page. It's bad enough to be a racist and a ghoul, but being an unskilled liar takes things up a notch. My next prediction -- Northam will reveal he is actually Bill Clinton's half-brother.
Super Bowl ads were mostly meh, but the jarring one was the "wait, what?" appearance of Andy Warhol, dead 32 years now, as a pitchman for Burger King. I'm eagerly waiting for the Picasso endorsement of Culver's and the inevitable pairing of Jackson Pollock and Jack in the Box. This one has Top Ten List potential, although having Frida Kahlo saying "Yo quiero Taco Bell" might be beyond the pale.
Old dude, 17 years ago today the Patriots beat the Rams to start their road to becoming a hated sports team that can't win without cheating. It's also the first Super Bowl I remember watching.
I remember Super Bowl V. Which was a bad game. Most of them were bad until the 1980s, actually.
I think everyone can agree that New England has been around too long, and some diversity in teams would be great.
Sure, but that requires the other AFC teams to get better. Other than Pittsburgh, and the Colts under Peyton Manning, has anyone been equal to that task? And is that Brady and Belichick's fault?
No, but let's be honest, Geritol Fan -- we're tired of these dudes.
Yeah, but it's been amazing to watch.
Maybe it's over, though. Maybe today. Watch me work!
New England Cheatriots (-2.5) vs. Los Angeles Rams. It's eerie how circular this game is compared to Super Bowl XXXVI. The Patriots are playing the role as favorite and the dynasty talk will be secured further with a win. The Rams have faced a long road back and are starting a young quarterback who nobody seems to trust outside of Hollywood. If that sounds familiar, it does echo back to 2002. The key to this game is going to be the first two full possessions of the second quarter. That sounds random, but hear me out. New England's experience in Super Bowls is that they do not start fast, but play better once they get settled in. I expect the Rams know this, and they tend to play better as the game goes on. Whomever plays better on the first two possessions of the second quarter should win. I think the Rams are a dangerous team and they are too flexible. Rams 35, Patriots 29. This Patriots team is flawed, but they are playing very well right now. The underrated part of New England's dynasty is how they've been consistently able to take away what their opponents do best. The Rams present a different challenge, though, because the thing they do best, surprisingly, is on defense. Aaron Donald is again the Defensive Player of the Year and he's the closest thing to an unstoppable defensive lineman I've ever seen. And his partner in crime Ndamukong "Hong Kong Dirty" Suh has been lights out for the last month. Tom Brady rarely has to face a team that can get pressure right up the middle quickly, but that's what the Rams will do. The Patriot O-line is good, but it's strength is on the edges, not up the middle. That's the question today -- can Tom Brady win the game if Donald and Suh can put him on his back consistently? If they can, chalk up another Lombardi Trophy for the Pats. I say. . . Patriots 31, Rams 27.
So the Old Dude disagrees with me yet again. I shake my head. And don't worry, I'm sure there will be plenty of HYYYYYYPPPPPPE! in the pre-game show, which began last Wednesday, I think. Ben out!
You might remember a few months back, when the Democrats were determined to sink Brett Kavanaugh, that his high school yearbook was given a level of analysis befitting a doctoral candidate studying Finnegan's Wake. You don't need to get all that meta to understand Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook:
Nice hood
This was 1984. I remember 1984. I was editor of my college newspaper that year. I did not publish any blackface photos, although I don't remember a whole lot of blackface happening at my school. 1984 was also, of course, the title of Orwell's classic novel, which included the idea of memory holes. I bet Northam wishes he could put this in the memory hole, but it's too late now.
He's going to get the Al Franken treatment. There will be no toughing this one out. And given Northam's campaign went to great lengths to portray his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, as a racist, Northam deserves it.
Supporters of the country’s expansive abortion regime now fear that the Supreme Court will retreat from it, either by declaring that the Constitution permits states to protect unborn children in general or by letting them offer more protection. That’s why they are pushing legislation in the states to codify that regime. It is an effort that is forcing supporters of abortion to be a little more candid about what they really want: an extreme regime that denies any meaningful protection to unborn children and threatens the protection for born ones.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn't coming back, and the Democrats know this. Roe v. Wade isn't intellectually sustainable. The Democrats know this as well. So now we're getting the truth. There's no such thing as "safe, legal, and rare."
