Housekeeping

A few things:

• 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.

No impact.

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!

Walk away

No deal with the Rocket Man:

 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.

Ahem

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.

So. . .

. . . where's the damned Global Warming?

On the bright side, there is no bright side

Definitely need to get out of here for a few days next winter.

Payin' the cost to be the boss

That's really boss:

"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

Tariffic news

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.

Scoreboard

As seen on social media:

Have you the wing?

Peter Tork, RIP

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.

#Justice4Dejon

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.

And furthermore, to hell with hate

Yesterday we had Tim Hardin. Today, Joe South:

'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.

A very old song

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

-- "Reason to Believe," Tim Hardin, 1966

A very old song, indeed:

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:

But still I'd look to find a reason to believe:

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.”

If I listen long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true:

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.

But still I look to find a reason to believe:

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.

Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced
While I cried 

[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.

Paragraph of the day/il miglior fabbro

Ann Althouse makes a smart observation:

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.

Stand up or give up.

Just run, then

I'd be hard pressed to think of a more irritating local politician than Ron Latz, who buys his sanctimony by the 55-gallon drum, but even he would be an improvement over Ilhan Omar:

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.

Memo to local media

Ahem.

Yes, it was news last week when Amy Klobuchar announced she was running for president.

No, it's not news that she's visiting other states. All the candidates do that. We don't need wall-to-wall coverage of her visits to Eau Claire.

Thank you.

More, please

A good start:

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.

Or don't

At the new Portillo's in Roseville, a suggestion you might not heed:

Dam

Tracking

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.

Global warming and sunlight

The best disinfectant:

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.

Most Reverend Horse's Ass

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.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Bishop is a horse's ass. He owes the students of Covington Catholic as public an apology as the denunciation he previously issued, not the namby-pamby "sorry if you're offended" version he sent out previously, via letter. And if he had any decency, he would resign his position. But he doesn't.

The third-party investigation Foys references may be nice for the historical record, but it's a CYA maneuver. A shameful end to a shameful moment.