Two Democrat presidential candidates – Fauxcahontas and The Bogus Latino – come out in favor of turning the rule of the country over to New York, California, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida (AKA “abolishing the electoral college”).
Maybe it’s time we just had the most amicable split we can still manage?
I’m not really looking forward to the “Internet of Things”.
Partly it’s because of the nightmarish security risks – which we’re already seeing.
Partly I think it’s because it promotes a formo of “connectedness” that isn’t very connected.
But mostly it’s because, workign in the software industry as I do, I know that software doesn’t just work. The more complex it is, the longer it takes to debug, and the more byzantine the errors.
In fact, the recent Ethiopian Air and Lion Airways crashes have reinforced my desire to fly only in planes controlled by hydraulics and, if possible, mechanical cables.
That should be the title of this superb Kevin Williamson piece at National Review about the subject, of, well, not spending money you don’t have, and how Donald Trump, whatever his other found virtues, is really really bad at not doing that.
So many pull quotes – and all have a theme:
Stop spending money you don’t have, dummy.
The last time we had a surplus, tax revenue was 18.8 percent of GDP and spending was 17.6 percent of GDP. That was 2001. Taxes were even higher as a share of GDP in the two years before that: 19.2 percent of GDP in 1999 and 20 percent in 2000. I prefer low taxes, but I don’t remember the tail end of the 1990s as an Orwellian dystopia. If the estimates hold, this year, revenues will be about 16.3 percent of GDP and spending will be 21 percent — with deficits forecast as far as forecasters can see. And that’s while the economy is doing well. Either that tax number moves or that spending number moves — or we have deficits forever, until the creditors call us on our bullsh**.
At which point we will have no choice but to:
Stop spending money you don’t have, dummy.
And when they blow that? Well, Williamson’s on that subject, too.
Kamala Harris, candidate for President, says the United States still hasn’t had an honest discussion about race.
Well, Kamala, that’s because “discussion” means “two people talk,” not just “you lecture me.” The word comes from a Latin root meaning “to take apart, to examine.” We can’t have a discussion if every time I try to speak, you silence me with a label like “Racist.”
Oh, crap, what that mansplaining? I guess I’d better shut up while you explain why I’m wrong about that, too.
Joe Doakes
We need a conversation about why you’re evil.
The easiest way to cut down on all the “pouncing” (on Democrats) in politics?
Gundeck all critical insights.
Newswire service Reuters revealed over the weekend that one of its reporters sat on an explosive story about former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) until after his contentious election battle against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last year, only publishing the story once O’Rourke officially announced his presidential candidacy.
That’s one way of cutting down on all the anger and ire in politics today…
Defamation suits are hard to win. And to a great extent, that’s a good thing; it’d be a terrible thing if litigation could cow the media out of reporting on the rich, famous and powerful, as it does in the UK.
In the US, defamation is, loosely, saying something false about someone in public that can damage their reputation and livelihood. If the target is a public figure, the defamer has to know it’s a lie. The standards – actual damages, provable malice – are intentional, and largely a good thing.
And, says Hans Von Spakowski, a surmountable level of proof in Nick Sandman’s defemation case against CNN:
Since Sandmann would not be considered a “public figure” under applicable Supreme Court precedent, he doesn’t have to prove that CNN knew the statements were false, just that they were false. Sandmann’s lawyers make a strong case, though, that CNN acted with “actual malice” and that the network’s behavior was so “outrageous and willful” and such a violation of basic journalistic standards that punitive damages should be awarded.
Interestingly, one of the lawyers representing Sandmann is Lin Wood, the same lawyer who represented Richard Jewell. Jewell was the security guard at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics who was wrongly accused by CNN and other media companies of bombing the city’s Olympic Park. When CNN was sued for defamation, it agreed to pay Jewell an undisclosed amount. That settlement came shortly after NBC agreed to pay Jewell a reported half-million dollars.
Increasingly, our media seems to be acting like a law unto itself. That needs to change.
Today is the day I will, for the first and only time ever, defend Chelsea Clinton.
To: The Council for American/Islamic Relations
From: Mitch Berg, Crabby Peasant
Re: Well, You Know
Dear CAIR:
For starters – condolences about last week’s shooting. It’s a horrible thing and proves that even the most placid parts of the First World can be awful, anarchic places. This should be a lesson for a lot of privileged, white, First World “progressives”…
But I digress.
Your Minnesota chair called for Minnesotans to reject Islamophobia:
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference Friday morning in Minneapolis, with a number of speakers highlighting the threat of anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States and across the world.
Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of CAIR-MN, called for all Minnesotans to stand against Islamophobia.
“The only way we can move forward is when the average Minnesotan says, ‘Not in my state, not on my watch,’” he said. “That is the only way we can move forward.”
On a couple levels, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve fought with some of my political party’s moron bigot fringe against “Islamophobia”. And like a lot of people like me, I’ve offered to take any Muslim citizen who wants to learn a more active form of self-defense to the range (given that the closest thing to a positive lesson one can take from last week’s atrocity is that “a good guy with a gun” works for Muslims too).
But while we’re talking about bigotry – let’s see to all the antisemitism?
Don’t be coy. You know it exists. You may not agree it’s a bad thing…
…and right there, there’s the problem.
Any chance you could speak out against that?
Have your people call my people.
That is all.
The New Zealand shooter said he intentionally chose his weapons to influence politics in America, hoping to start a civil war that would destroy our nation.
And right on cue . . .
Joe Doakes
When loonies around the world know that the fastest way to affect American politics is to appeal to the stupid and emotion-driven, we’re in big trouble.
First things first – with regard to the massacre in Christchurch New Zealand, Berg’s 18th Law is in full effect: “Nothing the media writes/says about any emotionally charged event – a mass shooting, a police shooting, anything – should be taken seriously for 48 hours after the original incident. It will largely be rubbish, as media outlets vie to “scoop” each other even on incorrect facts.”.
But indications so far are that the attack was carried out by more than one person, whose motivations and “manifesto” seem at first blush strikingly similar to those of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian who murdered 70-odd Norwegians, mostly teens at a political summer camp; the killer/s seem to have been motivated to attack Muslims, specifically.
Note that while New Zealand’s gun laws aren’t as full-blown nanny as Australia’s, they are more in line with California’s or New York State’s – registration/licensing/permits to own, “universal” background checks, the works. Note to Governor Walz; get back to us about your “universal” registraiton bill.
So my thoughts and prayers to the Muslims of New Zealand. (And for those idiot progs on Twitter who mock and taunt the idea – yes, thought and prayer and taking a moment to think rationally is in fact more useful than the actions you propose in responding to this sort of thing).
But let’s make sure we’re clear on the real lesson, here: there was a Good Guy with a Gun at one of the mosques that was attacked, and God only knows how many lives the man saved:
BREAKING: The New Zealand Herald reports that the shooting at the second mosque was stopped by an armed Muslim who “chased the shooters and fired two shots at them as they sped off.” pic.twitter.com/BA2FzsXq2d
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) March 15, 2019
Again – with Berg’s 18th Law in mind – it would appear that the shooters had a lot more in common with the French Bataclan terrorists than with your garden-variety American “Gone Postal”-style spree killers. The limited, regulated availability of firearms in News Zealand was only marginally less effective in preventing terror and saving lives than France’s near-complete ban (and ocmplete ban, for that matter, on the military-grade guns that the Paris terrorists used).
The only measure that worked? A good, Muslim guy with a gun.
That’s the real lesson – for those interested in rational thought.
Some of my conservative – and in some cases “conservative” – circle of acquaintances are exercised over Ilhan Omar’s Muslim faith. Some of the more hysterical believe she’s the vanguard of an invasion bringing “Sharia” law to the United States.
In its time, the US has withstood attacks by the greatest empire the world has ever known, by international socialism, Naziism and Communism. A seventh-century ideology that can barely feed its own people isn’t going to conquer us. And Muslims make up less than half a percent of the American population; if they manage to impose Sharia on the other 99.5% of the population, the majority will probably deserve what befalls them.
But the problem with Ilhan Omar isn’t that she’s Muslim. It’s that she’s a “progressive“:
Ilhan Omar attended a 2017 conference in Istanbul with left-wing advocates, including a pro-abortion group that calls for “abortions beyond laws and borders,” and activists who aim to “challenge patriarchal structures.”
Rolling Stone recently lauded the congresswoman, who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic comments, as “everything Trump is trying to ban.” Omar told the magazine she was afraid to leave the country in early 2017 after President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting travel from seven Middle Eastern countries the administration identified as terrorist hotbeds.
“I had just gotten sworn in [to the Minnesota Legislature] two weeks before,” Omar said, remarking on the executive order 13769, signed on Jan. 27, 2017. “There was lots of chaos, people being stopped at the airports. I had a flight scheduled a week after to speak at a human-rights conference in Turkey. I didn’t know whether I could go.”…The conference was in Istanbul, Turkey, which was not affected by the travel ban. Nevertheless, Omar used her upcoming appearance at the International Human Rights Defenders Conference, which was organized by the local Turkish government and the British Embassy in Ankara, as a cudgel to attack the president.
“Progressivism” will destroy this country long before Islam will.
“But she’s an anti-Semite!”
So are “Progressives”. Any antisemitism that comes from her Muslim background is an intersection with her real religion, “progressivism” – not an addition.
The actual science about the dangers of nuclear power – or lack thereof – is not “settled” so much as it is very, very convincing:
“By now close to one million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster,” wrote Helen Caldicott, an Australian medical doctor, in The New York Times. Fukushima could “far exceed Chernobyl in terms of the effects on public health.”
Many pro-nuclear people came to believe that the accident was proof that the dominant form of nuclear reactor, which is cooled by water, is fatally flawed. They called for radically different kinds of reactors to make the technology “inherently safe.”
But now, eight years after Fukushima, the best-available science clearly shows that Caldicott’s estimate of the number of people killed by nuclear accidents was off by one million. Radiation from Chernobyl will kill, at most, 200 people, while the radiation from Fukushima and Three Mile Island will kill zero people.
It’s a long read, but an excellent one…
…whose conclusions show that any “Green New Deal” that doesn’t include nuclear power, isn’t about saving the environment.
Gun grabbers had a cute little rally the other day at the capitol.
It drew about a third what the Second Amendment rally two weeks ago managed – not that the media coverage of either would convey the difference. Not honestly.
But I digress.
They – the metrocrats who took power last fall – think guns are the wedge that’ll pick up the Senate for them:
One of the loudest voices leading the charge at Wednesday’s rally inside the State Capitol rotunda came from First Lady Gwen Walz, who vowed electoral consequences if measures to expand background checks and adopt a red flag law don’t receive hearings and a vote this session.
“If they do not put it up for a vote, there are seven senators sitting in seats where Tim Walz won — and we are coming,” Gwen Walz said.
By all means do, Mrs. Walz. You may have forgotten 2002, the last time the DFL made opposing the law-abiding citizen a beach worth dying on. I sure do, though.
The GOP majority in the Senate has apparently been listening to the overwhelming majority of phone calls and emails:
But Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, has promised to stand in the way of any new gun restrictions in his chamber. Gazelka, in an interview this week, said the issue would instead be taken up next year.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, who chairs the Judiciary and Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee, echoed Gazelka’s wishes.
“With divided government that we have now, I think any gun bill will have to have a wide consensus in order to be seriously considered and passed in the Minnesota Legislature,” Limmer said.
If you haven’t been beating your legislators’ doors down, what are you waiting for?
A Saint Paul woman, upset that a local Dominos Pizza had forgetten her wings in her delivery, decided to take the law into her own hands.
Well, not “the law”, per se. More like “Customer Service”:
Police were called to the Domino’s at 1110 Grand Avenue just before 9 p.m. Thursday on a report of a customer pointing a handgun at staff.
When police arrived, they were told that the Robinsons — who had already left — were upset that their wings hadn’t been delivered with their pizza to their home in the 1000 block of Dayton Avenue. An argument had ensued.
It was fairly easy to find the Robinsons’ home, since the order had recently been delivered there. Police drove to the address, and — while waiting for a supervisor to arrive on scene — Holly Robinson came out of the home and began talking to officers.
“She didn’t want to wait for another order because they had already waited for an hour, so she decided to go to Domino’s because it would be faster,” a police report stated. The two had demanded a refund.
The Robinsons never got their wings, or a refund. The daughter told officers the “manager had an attitude,” and said her mother had brought a gun because she feared a physical confrontation. She took it out and held it at her hip but never pointed it, the daughter said.
The first thing I thought on hearing the story was “please don’t have a carry permit”.
Since it’s been about a week and we haven’t had Nancy Nord Bence yipping about it, I’m gonna guess Ms. Robinson doesn’t.
A colleague at work wanted to chat about my weekend. I didn’t. But we’re friends, that’s what friends do, they share stuff about their lives, right?
We’re not friends. We work for the same employer. We are friend-ly, in the sense of getting along at work, but we don’t go to dinner at each other’s houses, birthday parties, bowling league. We’re “work friends” but not “real friends.”
And honestly, I don’t want to be. I suspect my work-friend’s political leanings do not accord with mine so the conversations I carefully avoid at work are landmines waiting to explode an after-work friendship. Depending on the work-friend’s level of butthurt, it could affect our work relationship and that might drag in HR, who nobody wants to see, ever, for any reason.
Does that make me stand-offish? Cold? Yep. Also wary, defensive, and suspicious. That’s life in the SJW workplace. There are no real friends. Only work-friends.
Joe Doakes
Sometime when I have the mental energy, I need to start writing the tales of the SJW workplace.
To: The University Of North Dakota Wildcats Or Bobcats Or Moose Or Whatever You Are These Days, Other Than “Sioux”, Good Heavens, Not That
From: Mitch Berg – Native and obstreporous peasant
Re: This is how you do it.
UND,
As the subject line says – this is how the PC war is fought.
That is all.
Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson is on “The Closer” edition of the NARN Sundays from 1-3PM.
So tune in the Northern Alliance! You have so many options:
Join us!
The Democrats will be holding their convention next year in Milwaukee.
Kevin Williamson thinks that’s pretty appropriate, all in all.
In response to a particularly stupid column by Paul Krugman a few years back, our friend Iowahawk shared an interesting discovery: Schools in progressive Wisconsin on average outperform the schools in low-spending, Republican Texas — but the schools in Texas outperform the schools in Wisconsin when it comes to outcomes for white students, black students, and Latino students, each of which group produced higher test scores in Texas than in Wisconsin. Wisconsin came out ahead not because it does a better job with any particular group of students but because it is overwhelmingly white. In other states black and Hispanic students trail their white peers, too, but seldom as much as they do in Wisconsin’s graduation rates.
The Democrats own Milwaukee, which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1908. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez et al. will be cheered to know that Milwaukee has had three times as many socialist mayors as Republicans since the beginning of the 20th century.
I’m exceptionally confident we’ll find Minnesota compares identically.
Is it just me, or are people getting worse?
I worked at a job once upon a time – decades before #MeToo – where the boss took a lot of indecent liberties, verbally if not physically, with the women at work. This was in the 1980s.
And he wound up as the subject of seven sexual harassment lawsuits, and lost his job after about a year.
Again – 1988.
And as I’ve slogged through three decades in the working world since then, I’ve listened to a lot of pundits bemoaning that there just aren’t enough female managers, and enough respect for women. I’ve also worked for a lot of women; my first field after radio, technical writing, was pretty much dominated by women. My current field, perhaps less so.
I’ve also heard few stories from women about predatory bosses and coworkers. A few, to be sure – I’ve had a few good female friends who’ve related some shocking stories of coworkers and sexual predation on at least a rhetorical level…
…all pretty much followed up by a visit to HR, and some sort of consequence for the guy, commensurate with the severity of the indiscretion.
Let me sum up; over thirty years in the workforce, and a generalized knowledge that there are consequences, at least in the civilized world (forget about ad agencies and showbiz) for guys acting like neanderthals.
And so since then, as I have watched the #MeToo “movement” make sexual harassment a part of the “national conversation” yet again (that’s right, kids – it’s not the first time), and read stories like this…”
All woman live on a spectrum of misery because, we can only assume, we are women. I have endured attempted rape, and sexual assault on public transport. I have been fired from jobs for not being demure or flirtatious enough (because only two female archetypes are acceptable, and both have terrible pitfalls.) On my first day of work at a famous newspaper, a famous male journalist invited me to place a cigar in a place from which no words come. I giggled, and that giggle – it was a tragic giggle – tells you everything.
via, ironically, “Unherd“
I’ve had to wonder – am I (or, really, the decades of female friends I’ve had in the work force) been unshakeable pollyannas? Have I managed, at random, to steer a course through the working world without encountering my share of predatory guys? Have I – who spent most of the past 20 years neck-deep in raising kids – just been too buried to notice?
It’s possible.
Or is it the industries that’ve spawned “#MeToo” – the “elite” reaches of showbiz, the media, academia and politics, where power is one of the perks (for men and women), and the sense of entitlement that comes with the career for people who’ve never really known anything else?
Or is it the current generation, the millennials who as adults collect grievances and diagnoses the way they used to collect Pokemon cards? And for whom, like the raft of fake hate-crime hoaxers that’ve plagued our campuses, the perception of grievance is the same as an offense?
It’s not a rhetorical question.
The barring and harassment of conservative speakers on campus – even campuses like Grand Canyon and Northwestern in Saint Paul, which recently got heartburn over Star Parker – isn’t just a series of random snowflakes yelling themselves hoarse:
Lefties call this kind of challenge a structure test. It’s an evaluation of capacity. Organizations (or people) can either pass a structure test, or they can fail. In the case of the [Grand Canyon University] challenge, [Young America Foundation] passed. So, the next question is whether YAF has the capacity and willingness to pass that structure test somewhere else for the sake of Parker, who is a less prominent name than Shapiro.
After that, the question will be whether YAF can pass that test again, and again, and again. It’s an unending series of questions: Are you willing to fight? How much? For how long? How many fights can you sustain? How many fights can you keep track of? How many lawsuits can you afford to file?
Even I lose track.
The answer?
Organize – finally, once and for all. Of course, it’s easier said than done:
First off, let me stress that this kind of organization isn’t something just anybody can do. Some people are better placed to do it than others. The ideal person to be involved in this work is somebody who’s active in her alumni network, was active in campus life as a student, and has a good number of healthy contacts, preferably among people who are active donors.
If that’s you: sit down and make a list of people you know personally, who donate time and money to the university, who are unhappy with the way things are. Call them up on the phone—don’t text, don’t email, don’t Facebook. You’re using a personal connection here, and the human voice is important.
Sound them out, make sure they’re on your side, then make it clear you’re putting together a group of donors who want to pressure the university to make it a better place for conservatives. They should ideally be of a variety of ages — that way their networks will consist of different graduating cohorts. Discuss what you’re doing, what your demands will be, and get people to sign on.
This is your organizing committee
Read the whole thing. It’s worth it.
Rep. Ilhan Omar keeps talking about Israel having undue influence in American politics, and people keep ripping her for it, calling her anti-Semitic.
I don’t like it. Name-calling is a silencing tactic of the Left. Whether you are branded as a homophobe, sexist, denier or anti-Semitic doesn’t matter: they’re all variations on “hater” and the Left won’t listen to haters, no matter what they have to say. People on the Right should not use that tactic. We should be able to defend our position with logic and reason.
Anti-Semitic means prejudiced against Jews. One need not harbor religious prejudice to ask why it’s in the best interest of the United States to support a nation, whether it’s Vatican City, Somalia, or Israel. The best foreign policy advice was given by Washington and Jefferson – honest friendship and commerce with all, entangling alliances with none. Religion shouldn’t enter into it at all, on either side, for or against.
I’m not saying Rep. Omar is right that Israel has too much influence on American foreign policy. But I am saying she’s not wrong to ask whether it does, and calling her names to silence her is an indication that the name-callers don’t think they can defend our Israel policy in an honest debate. That’s the most troubling aspect of all.
I agree with Joe about the name-calling – but, all due respect, I believe it’s possible to both have a rational debate about Israel point out the Democrat party has a bit of an antisemitism problem.
House Democrats can’t bring themselves to oppose illegal immigrant voting, even in the most meaningless way possible:
Nearly every House Democrat on Friday opposed a measure condemning voting in U.S. elections by illegal immigrants, as part of a sweeping election reform bill.
Oh nooo, Fox News
The GOP-backed measure would have added language to the “H.R. 1” election proposal stating that “allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens.”
Federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting in elections for federal office. But the GOP motion referenced how San Francisco is allowing non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to register to vote in school board elections.
Bear in mind – it’s the same language that passed without controversy six months ago.
The entire Democrat conference seems to think the entire nation suffers from Pauline Kael syndrome.
Whenever someone refers to “settled science”, I can be almost certain I’m talking with someone who doesn’t understand how science works.
Whenever I talk with someone who tries to apply the concept to psychology, I know that, beyond a profound lack of understanding of the discipline, I’m dealing with someone who has never had the faintest twitch of curiosity about the history of the field.
I pondered that last night as I listened to this piece, about how sixty years ago, the elite of contemporary psychology believed that showing inordinate affection and love to ones’ children would damage them profoundly.
Liberals insist they must have safe spaces, free from people who upset them with BadThink ideas. Sounds great. Let’s start with bathrooms. Women means biologically female, no transgender men who mistakenly think they’re women. Gated communities are safe spaces. North Oaks should put up the gates again. No BadThink socialists allowed inside our ritzy neighborhood. Golf courses should be safe. No Jews, Negros, Women allowed to join? So what? The rest of the members are protected from minority BadThink. It a safe space. It’s our right. Liberals said so. And about that cake you want decorated . . . .
Safe Spaces are really a resurrection of Freedom of Assembly. I should be free to gather together with whomever I choose, which carries the necessary implication that I should not be forced to assemble with people I don’t want to associate with. But of course with the Left, it’s freedom for me but not for thee. Hypocrisy is impossible for people without standards.
Along with racism, hate and misogyny, the accusation is never about making the world more moral or less evil. It’s about controlling the argument by bullying you.
SCENE: A busy office at a major news network. Ira KATZ and Melyssa HOOPERMAN-BELL, two senior network executives, are discussing an upcoming newscast.
KATZ: OK. So we’ve got this piece on the revolving door between Fox News and the Trump White House.
HOOPERMAN-BELL: Excellent. I hate Trump.
KATZ: Everyone hates Trump.
HOOPERMAN-BELL: And this connection between them and Fox News is a threat to democracy.
KATZ: Unprecedented.
HOOPERMAN-BELL: Who should do it?
KATZ: Stephanopoulos.
HOOPERMAN-BELL: Definitely Stephanopoulos.
And SCENE. Always, forever SCENE.
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