SAME THEME FROM THE LIBERTY ZONE, WHICH MEANS IT’S MORE COLORFUL. YEAH COLORFUL: (Okay, for the naive among you, that IS a language warning.) The Independent Goes Full Retard.
LYING ABOUT TRUMP IS BECOMING AN HABIT: Trump Trance Strikes Again: Trump Says ‘Senate Rules,’ Left Hears ‘Constitution’.
HOLD THE CRIMINALS ACCOUNTABLE: Remember the VICTIMS of Communism on May Day!
May 1, 2017
ANTHONY FISHER: Liberals’ Free Speech Amnesia. “Erstwhile anti-war presidential candidates and distinguished professors should know better than to put their faith in authority when it comes to the competition of ideas.” Well, they’re putting their faith in leftist authority.
TO BOLDLY GO WHERE FRANK J. FLEMING HAS GONE BEFORE: “At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States found themselves locked in a chilling race to nuke the moon, declassified military documents reveal.”
To be fair, one could modestly describe such efforts as “A Realistic Plan for World Peace.”
CHARLIE MARTIN: Remember the VICTIMS of Communism on May Day!
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Trump Will Test Democrats’ Tax Patriotism: President’s plan would make high-tax blue states pay their fair share.
Democrats have been saying for years that we need tax increases, and that paying taxes is one of the greatest forms of patriotism. Now it looks like President Trump is going to put their beliefs to the test.
Trump’s new tax plan would hit blue states hardest, by eliminating the federal deductibility of state income and property taxes. . . . That’s going to make it harder for blue states to maintain the high tax rates they’ve traditionally levied.States should be able to set their own levels of taxing and spending, but I see no reason why a Walmart cashier in Tennessee (which has no state income tax and low property taxes) should be subsidizing a hedge fund mogul in New York or a studio executive in Hollywood. It’s fine if blue states want to have higher state and local tax rates, as they do, but they shouldn’t be encouraged to do so by federal tax giveaways. And it’s the urban, coastal areas that have done best over the past 25 years, so it seems time for them to pay their fair share now.
Fair share! Fair share! The wealthy states can afford to “chip in a little more.”
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Compromise Spending Bill Includes 2,500 More Visas for Afghans in Program.
THE ANATOMY OF LIBERAL MELANCHOLY: “The Trump-Putin obsession is the death rattle of an entire epoch, and the fever dream of a social class whose self-understanding utterly depended upon that era’s basic historical assumptions.” Even some lefties get it.
IN MY EXPERIENCE, THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE NAKED IN PUBLIC ARE SELDOM THE PEOPLE I WANT TO SEE NAKED IN PUBLIC: 13th annual World Naked Gardening Day (Sat. May 6th, 2017)!
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FIGHTING WORDS: Kate Upton Might Not Be Perfect.
SHELBY STEELE: The Exhaustion of American Liberalism.
The recent flurry of marches, demonstrations and even riots, along with the Democratic Party’s spiteful reaction to the Trump presidency, exposes what modern liberalism has become: a politics shrouded in pathos. Unlike the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, when protesters wore their Sunday best and carried themselves with heroic dignity, today’s liberal marches are marked by incoherence and downright lunacy—hats designed to evoke sexual organs, poems that scream in anger yet have no point to make, and an hysterical anti-Americanism.
All this suggests lostness, the end of something rather than the beginning. What is ending?
America, since the ’60s, has lived through what might be called an age of white guilt. We may still be in this age, but the Trump election suggests an exhaustion with the idea of white guilt, and with the drama of culpability, innocence and correctness in which it mires us.
White guilt is not actual guilt. Surely most whites are not assailed in the night by feelings of responsibility for America’s historical mistreatment of minorities. Moreover, all the actual guilt in the world would never be enough to support the hegemonic power that the mere pretense of guilt has exercised in American life for the last half-century.
White guilt is not angst over injustices suffered by others; it is the terror of being stigmatized with America’s old bigotries—racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. To be stigmatized as a fellow traveler with any of these bigotries is to be utterly stripped of moral authority and made into a pariah. The terror of this, of having “no name in the street” as the Bible puts it, pressures whites to act guiltily even when they feel no actual guilt. White guilt is a mock guilt, a pretense of real guilt, a shallow etiquette of empathy, pity and regret.
It is also the heart and soul of contemporary liberalism.
It’s about unearned power and moral authority for people who should have neither.
THE TENNESSEE STAR HAS BEEN ALL OVER THIS ISSUE AND NO OTHER TENNESSEE MEDIA OUTLETS HAVE BEEN: GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Randy Boyd and Nashville Mayor Megan Barry Both Want Refugees But Remain Silent on Female Genital Mutilation Threat.
TRUE: Almost Every Speed Limit Is Too Low. “Traffic engineers believe that the 85th percentile speed is the ideal speed limit because it leads to the least variability between driving speeds and therefore safer roads. When the speed limit is correctly set at the 85th percentile speed, the minority of drivers that do conscientiously follow speed limits are no longer driving much slower than the speed of traffic. The choice of the 85th percentile speed is a data-driven conclusion—as noted lieutenant Megge and speed limit resources like the Michigan State Police’s guide—that has been established by the consistent findings of years of traffic studies. Yet most speed limits are set below the 85th percentile speed.”
SAD: Girl, 12, forced to withdraw from chess tournament for wearing ‘seductive’ dress.
The photo at the link shows an adorable and age-appropriate dress.
VICTORY GIRLS: Is ‘Stealthing’ really a new sex trend? Is it ‘rape’? Should we care? “Let me know when Switzerland convicts a woman of rape because a man wouldn’t have consented to sex with her if he knew she wasn’t on The Pill.”
THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: Oregon lawmakers consider ending Medicaid expansion to shore up budget.
MASS STABBING ATTACK AT UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN: Eyewitness says stabber used a machete, cops have him in custody but no other information available.
PROCUREMENT: The Air Force Plans to Fly 100-Year-Old Planes.
A hundred years ago, one state-of-the-air warplane was Standard Aircraft Corporation’s Standard J with a top speed of 106 miles per hour. Although to be fair, its wooden frame and small size probably made it quite stealthy.
“ACADEMIC FREEDOM” IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR “PROFESSORS GETTING WHAT THEY WANT:” Study suggests professors widely oppose campus carry as inimical to academic freedom, but fewer would alter their teaching habits under the law. Like a lot of bigots, they don’t like some people, but they will have to put up with it.
FLASHBACK: Stop Worrying About Guns in the Classroom. They’re Already Here.
WE’VE LOST OUR DAMN MINDS: Study Says Breastfeeding Should Not Be Called ‘Natural’ “Coupling nature with motherhood … is ethically inappropriate.”
This one could also be filed under “This Is How You Get More Trump.”
STEVE RATTNER: Trump’s Tax Cuts May Be More Damaging Than Reagan’s.
I’m willing to take that risk.
Of course, what Rattner failed to address — and what Trump and the GOP Congress seem comfortable ignoring, too — is that we don’t have a revenue problem. What we have is a spending problem.
I DON’T TRUST THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Why You Should Buy the Dumbest Appliances You Can Find.
LEON TROTSKY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Ice pick headaches: Symptoms, causes, and treatment.
CNN PRESIDENT JEFF ZUCKER: ‘Fox is state-run TV’
Asked for his assessment of the cable news landscape in the era of President Trump, Zucker began his reply by saying: “Obviously Fox News is, uh,” then paused for more than 11 seconds. “So, look, there’s three cable news networks. Certainly in primetime and in the morning, Fox is state-run TV and is extolling the line out of the White House.”
A spokeswoman for Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zucker said MSNBC “has become the opposition” and CNN “is seeking the truth.”
“Do you think the other two networks are not broadcasting the truth?” the New Yorker’s David Remnick asked.
“Well, I think that there are clear agendas at work at the other cable news networks depending on their political points of view,” Zucker replied.
Physician, heal thyself.
SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Reaction To Bret Stephens’ Global Warming Column Shows Left Isn’t Interested In Debate.
David Harsanyi:
For his debut New York Times column, Bret Stephens penned a tepid article in which he made the completely rational suggestion that both sides of the climate-change debate might fare better if they were open to hearing out the opposition’s arguments. Perhaps then, he argues, they could better work toward some sort of solution. It’s the type of platitude the Left is always pretending they want to hear from conservatives.
They don’t. The overwhelming reaction, as usual, was “Burn the witch!” If you challenge climate change alarmism, you’re a denier of science. If you believe Obamacare is flawed policy, you support killing poor Americans. If you support tax cuts, you’re a pawn of the plutocracy. There is a perfunctory reaction for every issue; a prefabricated smear devised just for the occasion. Every one is meant to circumvent debate while imbuing the Left’s position with a (fake) patina of morality and “science.”
Within this world, there’s no space left for any conversation that doesn’t begin with “You’re right. What can I do to help?”
“Thank you, sir. May I have another?” might have been more apt.
READER BOOK PLUG: From Randolph Beck, One Thousand Years. Beck writes: “It’s got time traveling Nazis and a Tuskegee airman.”
TRUMP DECLARES “LOYALTY DAY,” critics go crazy, don’t realize it’s been around for longer than they’ve been alive.
THAT’S FAR KINDER THAN COMMUNISTS TREAT THEIR FOES: French Police Use Tear Gas on May Day Protesters as Presidential Election Nears.
KETOGENIC DIETS AREN’T EXACTLY NEW: Silicon Valley’s elite are flocking to an extreme high-fat diet in hopes of living longer.
#FAKENEWS: Trump Trance Strikes Again: Trump Says ‘Senate Rules,’ Left Hears ‘Constitution.’ “You know, I’m honestly starting to think that Trump has actually driven a lot of people to madness.” Well, to be fair, most of them were close enough to walk.
Plus: “In any case, it really is more of the Trump Trance effect: Trump says something, and people decide he said something else, even — by careful manipulation of context and straight out misquotation — apparently quote him as saying something else. And people believe it, and — if you were to look at my Twitter feed — get really angry when it’s pointed out it’s just not true.”
They need Trump to be as awful as they think he is, or all their crazed #resistance just looks crazed and tawdry. Which is what it is.
WAR ON MEN? Student penalized for using word ‘man’ on his essay.
“Thoughtful paper, although the writing-mechanics errors are killing you,” Professor Jack Davis wrote at the bottom of the paper. He gave the student a B minus, according to a copy of the essay published in the student news outlet the Daily Nerv.
Davis circled “man” and referenced his Writing Mechanics Exercise #20, which draws a distinction between “mankind” and “humankind.”
Davis defended the penalization in an email to The College Fix. He explained that the “exercise and inclusion of ‘humankind’ are consistent with the Chicago Manual of Style, the style and the usage guide followed in the discipline of history.”
Davis also said the exercise is “not to enforce political correctness” but is “both a grammar refresher and a style and user guide.”
It was also not for the use “man” alone that Poirier lost points. Rather, Davis explained to The Fix that students lose points when they don’t follow two or more standards.
“I do not lower a student’s grade for only one inconsistence, and I single out no student as an example,” Davis said.
Poirier’s paper was selected for class discussion, having been emailed to his classmates “with anonymity strictly maintained,” according to Davis.
But Poirier decided to publicly defend his use of the word “man” during the class discussion, calling it politically motivated, according to the Daily Nerv student news outlet.
It’s complicated.
ILYA SOMIN: Victims Of Communism Day 2017.
“THERE’S A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR WOMEN WHO DON’T HELP OTHER WOMEN,” THEY SAY. Brendan O’Neill: By their own logic, feminists should support Marine Le Pen. But everybody knows we’re only supposed to be excited about the first woman, the first black, the first gay or lesbian or Muslim, when it’s a lefty.
TURNABOUT: Japan helicopter carrier conducts operation to protect US ships.
This is a bigger deal than just a routine escort mission:
The MSDF helicopter carrier Izumo left the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, on Monday morning. The mission, ordered by Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, is aimed at deterring the North Korean regime, which attempted to test fire a ballistic missile on Saturday, from further provocations by demonstrating a robust U.S.-Japan alliance.
The carrier is scheduled to join a U.S. supply vessel in the Pacific on Monday and escort it on its journey to waters off the island of Shikoku in western Japan.
Under the new legislation, Japan’s SDF can provide protection for U.S. forces in ordinary times using a limited, minimum number of weapons to the extent needed to carry out a mission.
Today’s mission shows that Japan’s attitude towards the military has moved far away from its postwar constitutionally mandated pacifism, and towards something more assertive.
What the report left unsaid is that while the Izumo and her sister ship Kaga are classed as “helicopter destroyers,” they could conceivably carry and launch F-35B VTOL fighters — which would put Japan back in the power-projection business for the first time since 1945. Only this time, hand-in-hand with the U.S. Navy.
Beijing, which had previously protested that the Izumo is an “aircraft-carrier in disguise,” is on notice.
FEMALE ATHLETES UNHAPPY ABOUT BEING BEATEN BY FORMERLY-MALE ATHLETE: Aussie not happy after transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard achieves New Zealand sporting first. “She is who she is. That’s the way the politics…and what the New Zealanders have decided. I can’t say much more than that. She is seen as female and that’s the way it is.” I have to say, Laurel doesn’t look very womanly in that picture. She looks more like a Larry.
IN THE MAIL: The Problem with Socialism.
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KURT SCHLICHTER IS ENJOYING HIMSELF: 100 Days of #TheResistance’s Humiliating Failure. “#TheResistance is not really resisting Trump as much as it is resisting us. The elite establishment is outraged that we normals have demanded to govern ourselves rather than begging for scraps from our betters in DC, NY and LA. It wasn’t just that horrible, sick old woman that we rejected; it was them. And by doing so, we ‘stole’ what they see as their birthright to reign sovereign over us. . . . This election was about the people they sought to rule looking at them and their track record of failure and saying, ‘Nah, you suck.'”
Plus: “#The Resistance is a mess. Now they’re reduced to fighting for supremacy in their final redoubt, the universities where their fascist intimidation and suppression of speech provides a glimpse of America as it would have been had Trump not been elected. That they are forced into a last-ditch effort to keep power in an institution where their control is total is proof positive of their weakness.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Whittier Law School Died Many Years Ago, When It Strayed From Its Founding Mission To Prepare Students To Pass The Bar And Succeed As Lawyers.
SO, BASICALLY, THINGS ARE SHAPING UP FOR THE US TO BE THE NEXT SAUDI ARABIA: Oil Faces a Looming Supply Problem.
An oversupply can be a good problem to have, especially if you’re not the producer, but for the oil industry, low prices can create some medium-term headaches. In their attempts to adapt to the new market reality, oil companies around the world have had to cut their capital expenditure budgets to try and stay in the black. That’s meant a lot less cash has been spent on the exploration of new projects, and that could prove costly when the current generation of oil operations mature without new fields to transition to. . . .
The one outlier at the moment is U.S. shale, which has been ramping up output in recent months as producers find new ways to stay in the black even at $50 crude. Here in the states, companies are still spending on exploration and being rewarded for it, in large part because the scale of these so-called “unconventional” projects is much smaller than more conventional fields, which makes the up-front capital costs easier to bear for these companies in today’s bearish market. “The key question for the future of the oil market,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol, “is for how long can a surge in US shale supplies make up for the slow pace of growth elsewhere in the oil sector.”
Well, maybe not, but we’re positioned to do well.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: It’s not just controversial speakers who are silenced by threats. Students like me are, too. Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education need to pull federal funding from schools that don’t protect students’ free speech rights.
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BOMBS AWAY: A Boeing B-17G-50-VE (S/N 44-8167) of the 15th Air Force, 2nd Bomb Group, 96th Bomb Squadron, drops its bomb load. The photo also provides a decent view of several of the Fortress’ .50 caliber machine gun ball turrets, the top turret, the chin turret, and the belly turret. (From StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft photo series.)
VERY MUCH RELATED: Randall Jarrell’s The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.
STUDENTS FROM ACROSS THE NATION issue a call for free speech. “Over the weekend, 25 students from about 20 colleges around the country gathered at the University of Chicago to try to start a movement in which students would become leading defenders of free speech on campus — including speech that they find offensive. The students issued a statement Sunday that they plan to urge other students to sign and to abide by. . . . Individual students and student groups at some campuses have tried to make the case for free speech. At Harvard University, for example, a new student group is trying to invite the most controversial speakers possible to campus. But the effort started at Chicago is seeking to build a national movement, based on a philosophy of supporting free expression.”
CONFRONTING IRAN: Peter Huessy says Iran’s mullahs are dedicated to “a revolutionary, conquering Islam” and their regime must be stopped.
Iran’s hostile behavior is of a long standing nature, having been initiated in 1979 and continued through this past decade. It is not new and is not a reaction to bad American actions. It is rooted in the very nature of the Iranian regime. Unless we face that reality, our efforts to eliminate Iran’s pursuit of both nuclear weapons and a hegemonic role in the Middle East will be for naught.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Why It Matters How Ex-Presidents Make Their Money.
If President Obama had collected a $400,000 fee from the founders of Solyndra, the failed energy company that left taxpayers liable for $535 million in federal guarantees, the corruption would be obvious. But because he is taking money from companies that benefited from his policies in less obvious ways, we assume no corruption has occurred.
And maybe it hasn’t. Maybe Obama never made a decision while he was president in which he considered how it would affect his future finances. But even if he didn’t, he’s sending a signal to future presidents (just as Bill Clinton did) that if you play your cards right, your tenure in the White House is an assured path to multi-millionaire status.
This is also why former U.S. military generals should not be accepting “speaking fees” from foreign countries. Even if Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn did nothing wrong in collecting $45,000 for giving a speech to a Russian propaganda outlet, he set a standard for those who will come after him. If you believe there’s the potential to someday get rich off your country’s adversaries, then you may be tempted to promote policies that are in their interest and not in the national interest of the United States.
The signals we send matter, especially to politicians and government leaders. And if we signal to them that intertermporal corruption is a shrug-worthy offense, we should expect to see more of this type of cronyism in the future.
Trump should propose a 90% excise tax on speaking fees for former Executive Branch officials — including ex-Presidents. And when people point out that that’s easy for him because he doesn’t need the money, he can say “exactly.”
SALENA ZITO INTERVIEWS PRESIDENT TRUMP: ‘You make a mistake here, there is nothing to work out.’
Over the next 40 minutes, he jumps, in classic Trump fashion, over a range of topics, from his relations with foreign leaders to the danger of North Korea, from the election last year to his hopes for America tomorrow.
Yet listen closely, especially when he speaks about decisions involving life and death, and you sense that sitting here, in the Oval Office, as the 45th president has humbled even Donald J. Trump.
“You can make a mistake in deals, and you work it out,” he explains at one point. “You make a mistake here, there is nothing to work out. You know it’s trouble. It could be big trouble. And it is life-threatening trouble for lots of people, potentially.”
A portrait of Thomas Jefferson hangs to his right, one of Andrew Jackson, perhaps his favorite president, is to his left. A bust of a sober-looking Abraham Lincoln sits beneath Jefferson, while Trump’s father smiles broadly from a black-and-white photo behind the Resolute Desk, given by Queen Victoria in 1880 to Rutherford B. Hayes and used by many presidents since.
“It’s a very intensive process,” he says of the presidency. “Really intense. I get up to bed late and I get up early.” He rarely sleeps more than four hours, which is good, he explains, because he can call leaders around the world in the dark hours while the rest of Washington sleeps.
“When I was doing many real estate deals at one time, I always thought that was going to be more comprehensive and lengthier than a day like this.
“It’s not.”
So far into his presidency, as with so many modern-era presidents before him, much of his focus has been on challenges from abroad.
Read the whole thing.
LURKING BENEATH THE U.S.: According to Forbes, scientists have discovered a “massive lake” of molten carbon the size of Mexico beneath the western U.S. But it’s 217 miles below the surface, or thereabouts.
The carbon sits 217 miles beneath the surface of the Earth in the upper mantle and has no immediate pathway to the surface. In total the lake covers approximately 700,000 square miles, approximately the size of Mexico. This has redefined how much carbon scientists believe sits locked away in the Earth’s mantle and its interaction with surface and atmospheric carbon.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: SpaceX launches, lands Falcon 9 rocket. “After the launch on a northeastern trajectory, SpaceX successfully landed the rocket’s first stage at ‘Landing Zone 1’ at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, part of ongoing efforts to recover and reuse Falcon rockets.”
A USEFUL ADDITION TO TRUMP’S TAX REFORM PLAN: A Modest Proposal to Reduce “Inequality:”
A surtax on large private college endowments—say on all endowments that are more than something like $1 million per student. This would hit the ivy league schools that these days are raking in nearly $1 billion a year in contributions according to the latest reports. (I recall an old line from Conan O’Brien—a Harvard grad—about Harvard’s donor pitch: “We’re Harvard. We don’t need your money. We just want it.”) Or instead of a surtax directly on endowments, reduce the tax deductibility of donations to college endowments above a certain level.
And if Republicans really want to start riots in faculty clubs, they should pass Obama’s community college plan with one proviso: that all community college credits be fully transferrable to any four-year college that accepts any federal funding (which is every institution of higher learning except Hillsdale and one or two others). Watch the four-year colleges sputter with indignation.
Seems fair.
SPACE: Trump’s Least Controversial Frontier. Obama’s policy of benign neglect was very successful. I think Trump should continue it.
TRUE: Adriana Cohen: President gets last laugh for stiffing White House correspondents’ soiree. “Why should the president attend a high-profile media event aimed at giving gravitas and ratings to a hyper-partisan industry that has covered his campaign, transition and first 100 days with an unprecedented level of blatant hostility? That’s like handing the keys to your car to someone who has repeatedly slashed your tires.”
Ironically, many of the most exploited people reside in blue states and cities. Both segregation and impoverishment has worsened during the decades-long urban “comeback,” as even longtime urban enthusiast Richard Florida now notes. Chicago, with its soaring crime rates and middle class out-migration, amidst a wave of elite corporate relocations, epitomizes the increasingly unequal tenor of blue societies.
In contrast the most egalitarian places, like Utah, tend to be largely Trump-friendly. Among the 10 states (and D.C.) with the most income inequality, seven supported Clinton in 2016, while seven of the 10 most equal states supported Trump.
If you want to see worst impacts of blue policies, go to those red regions—like upstate New York—controlled by the blue bourgeoise. Backwaters like these tend to be treated at best as a recreational colony that otherwise can depopulate, deindustrialize, and in general fall apart. In California, much of the poorer interior is being left to rot by policies imposed by a Bay Area regime hostile to suburban development, industrial growth, and large scale agriculture. Policies that boost energy prices 50 percent above neighboring states are more deeply felt in regions that compete with Texas or Arizona and are also far more dependent on air conditioning than affluent, temperate San Francisco or Malibu. Six of the 10 highest unemployment rates among the country’s metropolitan areas are in the state’s interior.
I think that this is the result of Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims and that Congress can remedy it by civil rights legislation under its Guaranty Clause powers.
POLITICO: Biden keeps 2020 options open.
Flashback: Biden Swims Naked, Upsetting Female Secret Service Agents:
Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude,” Kessler writes in the book – due for release Aug. 5.
“Female Secret Service agents find that offensive,” he writes.
“Biden likes to be revered as everyday Joe,” an unnamed agent told Kessler. “But the reality is no agents want to go on his detail because Biden makes agents’ lives so tough.”
Plus: Washington Post: What Are We Going To Do About Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?
Also: Joe Biden’s Woman-Touching Habit.
Related: Talking Points Memo: Why Does Creepy Uncle Joe Biden Get A Pass From Liberals?
Plus:
YOU KNOW YOU’RE DOING THAT WRONG, RIGHT? Someone Is Going Around Shaving Other People’s Cats in Virginia.
OBAMACARE HAS ACHIEVED ITS PURPOSE:The health care industry is bound to collapse soon, experts say.
IN THE EMAIL FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Tanager’s Fledglings (The Tanager Book 1).
FROM KIM DU TOIT, PRAISE FOR AN ARCHETYPE OF MANHOOD: Dinner Guest Extraordinaire.
MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. IF THEY WEREN’T THERE WOULD BE NO POINT TO GAY RIGHTS OR TO ANYONE BEING GAY: We are different long before we are born. The hormone baths in the womb create different brains, different muscles, different bone. Not superior, not inferior, but different. Transitioning doesn’t change all that. Transitioning in the current state of the art is at best cosmetic. There are some people whom the cosmetic helps, psychologically, but to pretend cosmetic, superficial change goes all the way down is “politically correct”, a term invented by Mao Zedong to signify something patently false that ideology dictated be “true.” In other words it is believing ideology over our lying eyes. New Zealand Transgender Weightlifter Shatters Records.
WITH SO MANY COLLAPSES, I EXPECTED MORE RUBBLE AROUND HERE:President Trump Declares Loyalty Day: Collapse of Democracy Imminent.
BECAUSE CE N’EST PAS LEUR METIER? Why Gwyneth Paltrow and Other Celebrities Shouldn’t Be Your Source for Science. They’re hired to speak lines someone else writes and to do it with conviction. This might qualify them for politics, but not for science.
REMEMBER THE FATHER OF THIS COUNTRY WAS A FARMER:From Farm to Space: A Lost Cultural Myth.
PERSONAL AMBITION IS NOT A MANDATE; GREED IS NOT A VOCATION: Hillary’s presidential bid was doomed from the beginning.
April 30, 2017
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THE CONSOLATION OF DOUCHEBAGGERY: Samatha Bee, self-consolation, and the smug liberal problem.
I was going to add a “Bee-thius” joke here, but some of you are down on my obscure references, so never mind.
Plus, an NYT flashback: “Ha ha ha. That’s a very funny sentence now. If Trump if he were somewhat less volatile and bigoted and gross, just think: He might be President now.”
I’VE BEEN A FAN OF HERS FOR A WHILE NOW: Women gun owners, this young conservative is fighting for your right to defend yourselves on college campuses.
STACY MCCAIN: The Sexual Psychology of Winning: Do pickup artists know more about women than feminists do? Well, their approach is relentlessly empirical.
BECAUSE THEY’RE LEFTY TOOLS, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE AT THESE “PEOPLE’S MARCHES.” NEXT QUESTION? Why Latinos March For Climate. Also, Hispanic Federation President Jose Calderon should be ashamed for using the sexist word “Latinos,” when everyone knows the correct gender-neutral term is Latinx.
I THINK THAT INCREASING THEIR ANGUISH IS GOOD: Yale’s College Republicans Hold BBQ Near A Hunger Strike to Increase Protesters’ Anguish.
WHY ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUCH CESSPITS OF TOXICITY? Most New York City Schools Had High Lead Levels, Retests Find. I love how they cheated on the tests the first time around. And yet we’re told it’s only greedy businesses that do that sort of thing.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Know Whether You are a Real Person or a Simulation.
I REMEMBER WHEN PEOPLE WERE PREDICTING THAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WOULD GO THE WAY OF THE WHIGS: Exit the Dems, Stage Left:
This week the Draft Bernie for a People’s Party got a rather high-profile devotee in Harvard professor Cornel West, who used an op-ed in The Guardian to announce his imminent departure from the Democratic Party.
“We must admit that the Democratic Party has failed us, and we have to move on,” he wrote. “Where? To what?”
The People’s Party, he added, “builds on the ruins of a dying Democratic Party and creates new constituencies in this moment of transition and liquidation.”
West, a professor of The Practice of Public Philosophy, did a fair amount of public philosophizing about the 2016 election, insisting that it was one “which Democrats lost more than Republicans won” in large part because the party “put forward a Wall Street-connected and openly militaristic candidate with little charisma.”
Ouch! It’s enough to make you feel sorry for poor Hillary. And apparently the current darling of Democratic progressives, Massachusetts’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren, just won’t do.
“Only the ubiquitous and virtuous Bernie remains true to the idea of fundamental transformation of the party — and even he admits that seeking first-class seats on the Titanic is self-deceptive and self-destructive,” West wrote.
As for issues, well, the movement wants single-payer health care, is opposed to fracking, opposed to TPP (just like Donald Trump) and West in particular is “opposed to Israeli occupation” (it’s unclear whether that means simply the West Bank).
And, of course, there is the matter of age. Sure, Bernie’s a robust 75 today, but that would make him 79 in 2020. Guess there’s no expiration date on lefties.
Old people with old ideas, running as the party of youth.
VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE! A San Francisco Chronicle Columnist’s Plaintive Cry For Help.
Alternate description: DNC-MSM operative with byline who dubbed Chicago machine hack presidential candidate “a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment” not enjoying the Trump era very much.
Cross-reference additionally with (A) Dictionary definition of Schadenfreude. And (B) Dictionary definition of the Destructor.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Baltimore warns prosecutors to “think twice” before charging illegal immigrants.
THE MOST DANGEROUS CAR ON THE ROAD? According to the comments, it’s the Kia Rio. Which is funny, because I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those.
GLOBAL WARMING: When a scientific theory becomes a religion, then those with an opposing view become apostates.
And New York Times readers, and smug leftwing journalists who imagine themselves to be the second coming of Mencken bring the auto-de-fé. (Auto-de-fé? It’s what you oughtn’t to do, but you do anyway.)
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Eight False Pretenses Liberals Use to Frame an Argument.
SAMANTHA BEE ON CNN: THERE IS NO ‘SMUG LIBERAL PROBLEM:’
During their discussion, Tapper dredged up a New York Times opinion piece from September 2016 warning Hillary Clinton of her “Samantha Bee problem.” The column noted that not only Bee is the problem but all stuck up liberals as well. Bee laughed and denied such a problem existed.
“Oh my God, my name was in an article. It’s me! It’s not racism, it’s just me,” she quipped, targeting President Trump’s base. “You know what? I’ll just wait—I’ll wait for all that evidence roll in and then I’ll— then I’ll make up my mind after that.”
After Bee and Tapper joked around about her negative influence, he asked: “Does he have a point about smug liberals? I’m not talking about you. But is there a smug liberal problem?” “I just can’t take responsibility for the way the election turned out,” she responded before denying that such a problem played a role in 2016.
Yeah, I just can’t see it myself, either.
UPDATE: “Please, please keep this up, and Trump will win 48 states in 2020.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Dangerous Drinks and How to Spot Them. When in doubt, I text Stephen Green.
HOW SEX AFFECTS TRAINING AND COMPETITION: “In the past it’s been assumed that there’s a temporary drop in testosterone levels following sexual activity in males. However, the topic of pre-competition and pre-training sex isn’t as simple as once thought.”
All I know is that Tiger Woods was doing a lot better when he was on the drugs and the hoes than he was once he cleaned up his act. I think it was all about neuromuscular tuning.
NANCY PELOSI: “I’M SO SORRY, PRESIDENT BUSH, I NEVER THOUGHT I’D PRAY FOR THE DAY THAT YOU WERE PRESIDENT AGAIN.”
DO YOU EVEN LIFT, POPS? “Oh Dad,” she said, “you’re much more lovable when you’re pathetic.”
UPDATE: From the comments:
The linked article is a disguised advertisement for a new movie, masquerading as a soulful lament about daughters and aging dads.
The Teen Titans are mentioned at both the first and last sentence of the article, with “…I’m looking for noncompetitive activities we can share. I’m hoping we can see the new “Teen Titans” movie that came out this month…” at the end of the article to close the damn sale to the readers.
Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross said “ABC: Always Be Closing!” The Times’ shill masquerading as a columnist, ROBERT MARKOWITZ, certainly earned his pay for this product placement.
I, for one, resent the abuse of old media as a marketing tool even more than I resent the abuse of social media as a marketing tool.
I’d call the journalistic ethics police . . . if there were any.
SO I READ JOHN HAWKINS’ NEW BOOK, 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know, and it’s really quite good. An excellent graduation present. (Bumped).