HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT NOBODY EVER SAYS THAT THE ONLY WAY TO REDEEM THE DEMOCRATS IS FOR THEM TO LOSE? Because I’ve noticed that. Over and over again.
INVOKING THE INSURRECTION ACT IS GOING TO BE PRETTY EASY, REALLY: Gov. Cuomo says: Trump ‘better have an army’ to protect him if he comes to NYC. To be honest, I think Cuomo is more likely to wind up hanging from a lamppost at the behest of New Yorkers, and he’s trashing the conventions that prevent that with no thought of his own situation. Oft evil will shall evil mar.
INTELLIGENCE GATHERING at Protests. Note the reference to Antifa/RevCom. RevCom is the Revolutionary Communist Party. They were big in the Ferguson protests.
UPDATE: A friend emails: “The FBI’s domestic counter-intelligence role and budget is up for grabs.” Well, that depends on how they perform next, but yeah.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Some InstaPundit commenters question the accuracy of this report.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is the Democrat Party Filled With Covid-19 Hypocrites?
NEO: The Trayvon Hoax.
So here’s the documentary itself. Please be patient, and I think your patience will be rewarded. The importance of the Zimmerman/Martin case cannot be overemphasized. It’s the event that was the kickstarter for the organization BLM and the spreading of the leftist narrative about innocent blacks being killed in droves by cops. That’s a bit ironic, because Zimmerman wasn’t a cop. But he was considered a quasi-cop (and a quasi-white, since he’s half Hispanic).
Video at link.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Note these two entries, 11 minutes apart, on the San Francisco Chronicle’s blog-style Coronavirus Live Updates page, regarding San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed:
2 p.m. Breed says Pelosi salon visit distracts from important issues: San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Wednesday said the country should focus on more important issues than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to a hair salon as city rules allowed only outside operations for salons. “We basically have a dictator in charge of running the country. We have our speaker working day and night against the challenges we have at the White House. It’s unfortunate this conversation has blown up in the way it has and distracted us from the real issue, Breed said. “We have bigger issues as it relates to this country. That’s what we should be focused on.”
1:49 p.m. Breed calls for holiday observance of virus protocols: Mayor London Breed is asking San Franciscans to follow COVID-19 safety protocols over the three-day Labor Day weekend: “Let’s honor our workers by taking the measures to protect them,” she told a press briefing on Wednesday. Joined by community leaders, Breed said it’s safest to stay home. She urged residents to avoid large groups and social distance if they go out, adding, “Make sure everyone is wearing a face covering, and avoid sharing food and drinks.”
“Let’s honor our workers by taking the measures to protect them,” but when one the city’s nationally-known politicians refuses to do so, it “distracts from the important issues.” (And curiously, despite “a dictator in charge of running the country,” the worst that will happen to his arch-enemy is ridicule.) But the rules that politicians like Breed set into place that cripple the city’s businesses, and Pelosi’s flaunting of them are the important issues. Or as Mollie Hemingway responds to NBC’s Democrat stenographer “senior media reporter” Dylan Byers when he plays the same card:
In the New York Post, the Federalist’s David Marcus writes, “Perhaps some good can come of Pelosi’s ignominy. Perhaps seeing her insane hypocrisy, owners will start opening their businesses and daring petty tyrants like Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo to shut them down. One of the truly remarkable — and chilling — aspects of the more arbitrary lockdown rules is that, in general, they have been consented to, not enforced. We have given away our rights as much they have been taken from us. Well, if Pelosi doesn’t have to live under these absurd restrictions, then neither should you.”
Related: Speaking of the important issues:
While Nancy Pelosi is breaking the restrictions she put on her own district in order to get her hair done at a fancy salon, This is how her constituents live.
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 2, 2020
VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH ROGER SIMON: The Moral Narcissism of the Radical Left—Roger Simon on Riots & Beyond.
JAMES LILEKS’ WEDNESDAY REVIEW OF MODERN THOUGHT:
They can’t move the Washington Monument, but they can put up signs about slavery, and that will change people’s minds. Hope they hate him now! Don’t look up at this abstraction and feel anything but shame and boiling bile, topped off with self-reverence for being better than him.
This is the point where people incapable of holding two ideas simultaneously say “oh you care more about a stone pole than lives,” or some such gotcha that’s supposed to reveal me as a Nazi. Nailed it, bro! Every single piece of mental and physical energy spent on keeping the Washington Monument from being rebranded or “explained” by the humorless, ahistorical wokeoisie keeps Justice from happening. These are the same people who probably nod approvingly when the modern-day Jacobins roll up their home-made guillotines, and believe that the French got it right, and we got it wrong. Sure, we were founded in ideals that contained the liberation of all, and indeed forced it, if one was honest, but did we rename any months or shutter churches? No.
It’s as if their knowledge of the French Revolution ends with the Bastille doors thrown open, and a stream of jubilant social warriors imprisoned by Melania Antoinette pour forth, rejoicing, followed by a haircut for the oppressors — well, the neck has hair — and that was it! Then Great Justice and egalitarianism for all.
Read the whole thing. Incidentally, the latest chapter in this story has flashbacks to the aftermath of another revolution: “The WaPost cleanup crew in action. D.C. Mayor Bowser released a report recommending ‘the Federal government remove, relocate,or contextualize’ Washington Monument, etc. After pushback, Bowser removed that page–and the WaPost now pretends ‘remove’ and ‘relocate’ were never there.”
VIRGINIA IS NOW A ‘PRO-CRIME’ STATE? Hans Bader says that will be the case if liberal early-release legislation becomes law.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A SMALLER BLOG: Debunking NPR’s Bizarre ‘In Defense of Looting’ Interview. In a controversial NPR interview that quickly went viral, author Vicky Osterweil attempted to recast property crime as nonviolent and morally good:
In the controversial [NPR] interview, which quickly went viral, Osterweil attempts to recast property crime as nonviolent and morally good.
“When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot,” Osterweil says. “That’s the thing I’m defending. I’m not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force. It’s not a home invasion, either. It’s about a certain kind of action that’s taken during protests and riots.”
“[Looting is] taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free,” she continues. “[Looting] demonstrate[s] that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free.”
Contempt for looting, meanwhile, is driven by “anti-Blackness and contempt for poor people who want to live a better life,” Osterweil claims.
Before going any further, it’s worth pointing out the glaring holes in these arguments so far.
Read the whole thing. Osterweil is so out there, even Atlantic columnists are dunking on her:
My job sometimes entails traveling to countries recently or currently destroyed by civil unrest, and that experience has made me appreciate the fragility of peace, and has not made me eager to conduct a similar experiment in my own city.
I am also from recent-immigrant stock. Osterweil euphemizes looting as “proletarian shopping,” and no one from a place that has recently experienced this phenomenon can take seriously her assurance that it can happen justly and bloodlessly. When I think of riots and smashed storefronts, I think of Kristallnacht. I think of American businesses built by penniless immigrants who preferred to forfeit their vacations and weekends for 30 years rather than see their children suffer as they did; I think of these businesses ransacked in 30 minutes and left in ruins. Osterweil at least has the psychology right when she says that looting can be “joyous and liberatory.” I have never seen a sullen looter, but I have seen plenty of shop owners crying next to the smoking remains of their children’s future.
Why is the far left such a cesspit of anti-Semitism?
IRRESISTIBLY: How the Phillips Screwdriver Took Over America.
THERE ARE CERTAIN SECTIONS OF TEXAS THAT I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO INVADE: Will the Antifa Riots Come to Your Community? Voters Are Rightly Concerned.
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Man Suspected of Killing Trump Supporter in Portland Identifies Self as ‘100% ANTIFA.’
WELL, THEY COULDN’T RULE AGAINST IT WHEN OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT — THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN RACIST. Court rules NSA phone snooping illegal — after 7-year delay.
GREAT MOMENTS IN CHUTZPAH: Pelosi says San Francisco salon ‘owes me an apology for setting me up.’
On Tuesday, Erica Kious shared a security video of a maskless Pelosi getting a haircut inside her San Francisco salon despite the fact that the area only allows outdoor haircuts right now; Kious also admitted she knew about the appointment ahead of time and let it happen. Pelosi wouldn’t apologize to Kious or to her critics on Wednesday, instead asking Kious to apologize to her instead.
“I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon I’ve been to over the years many times,” Pelosi said on Wednesday, claiming the salon told her it could take one customer at a time. “As it turns out, it was a setup, so I take responsibility for falling for a setup,” she continued. “I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up.”
Note that Pelosi’s not taking responsibility for knowing what the laws for Covid are in her own district, and abiding by them. (Pro Tip: Don’t try this “set-up” defense if you’re ever stopped in a police radar trap for speeding.)
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: ‘Covid hugs:’ Springfield, MA police asking public to help ID suspects offering infective embrace. “A man is accused of hugging shoppers in a Walmart and telling them they now have coronavirus, according to Springfield Police, which is seeking the public’s help in the investigation.”
‘WE’RE NOT CLOSING DOWN THIS CHURCH:’ Things are escalating as California officials ratchet up their enforcement efforts against evangelical congregations defying Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest Covid-related restrictions on indoor gatherings.
Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s the traditional, politically conservative churches in the most leftist-dominated state forming the front line in defense of constitutional liberty? Didn’t there used to be a California GOP with brass ones?
LOTS OF LOVE FOR THE NEW FORD BRONCO.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Antifa Drives Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler Out of His Home.
The race for Worst Mayor in the United States is starting to heat up. There are a lot of contenders: de Blasio, Garcetti, Lightfoot, Durkan, Frey, Bottoms… They’re all bad public servants and even worse liars. Most mayors only disappoint and infuriate their own citizens, but these select few keep pissing off the whole world. Now there’s a dark horse in the race, and he’s moving up fast. He might not be running the biggest city in the country, but right now it’s one of the most violent. And he has absolutely no idea what to do about the chaos and destruction within his city limits, because his liberal ideas about the world haven’t prepared him for it. Of course, I’m talking about Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, Oregon.
* * * * * * * * *
Wheeler has made a big show of rejecting federal help, because #DrumpfIsBad. In return, Antifa is going after him even harder.
And that’s just another week in Portland. It’s commonplace now. Everybody who’s been paying attention knows about it. And yet, when CNN sends “journalists” to cover it, they send out stuff like this instead:
Wheeler isn’t the only mayor to have had Antifa and/or BLM arrive at his front door: San Jose mayor’s home vandalized, becomes subject of protests. “The vandalism to [Mayor] Liccardo’s home occurred just one month after the home of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was also splattered with graffiti messages such as ‘Defund OPD’ and ‘Cancel Rent.’”
NEW CIVILITY WATCH (See update below): On the Lesson Plan at Appalachian State University in North Carolina: ‘If a Few of the Worst Republican Politicians Were Assassinated, it Wouldn’t Be the End of the World.’
UPDATE: An Insta-reader who is one of the course instructors sent us this email:
Here’s more context on that survey in the story you reblogged.
Haidt’s site on morals has many surveys. We assigned one called “Moral Foundations Questionnaire.” You can find the survey yourself if you register at yourmorals.org (note: we used the original in the lower section, not the revised one in the upper). The student took the “Political and Social Attitudes” survey instead. You can see that the two are totally different–and the one we assigned does not contain the “there is no right answer” language to which the parents objected.
To put the latter survey in context, for decades political psychologists have talked about ‘right-wing authoritarianism’ but not left-wing authoritarianism. This survey is one attempt by researchers (at Emory, apparently) to reverse that bias and measure left-wing authoritarianism. That’s why there aren’t any opposite questions. They’re trying to measure how intolerant the Left is, not the Right,
In short, the innocuous-sounding “political and social values” survey appears designed to collect academic-journal-publishable survey evidence to document that arguments like those in Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism or Dreher’s “Pink Terror” thesis are correct.
Glad to hear it; hopefully Townhall will update the story at the above link as well.
(Updated and bumped.)
OCEANIA HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP: Did Impeachment Happen, Or Did I Imagine It?
WELL, IT’S A STATE WHERE LAW AND ORDER HAS BROKEN DOWN: Handgun Permit Requests Overwhelming NC Officials.
TODAY AT 3:30PM EASTERN: VIP Gold Live Chat with VodkaPundit, Kruiser, and Preston.
There will be cocktails.
REVERSE COURSE! Shockingly, the Democratic Nominee Will Visit Wisconsin.
But won’t Biden’s visit violate ‘the peaceful nature’ of things in Kenosha, as previously described in the limited hangout issued by his campaign spokeswoman?
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): So if you’re really cynical, you figure Biden will be shot by a “white supremacist,” the Dems will replace him with someone electable, and the media will unanimously blame Trump?
ANOTHER REASON NOT TO GET COCKY: Biden, Democrats Shatter Fundraising Record With $364.5 Million In August.
THEY’LL BE HARD TO TALK TO: A Strange Form of Life Could Flourish Deep Inside of Stars, Physicists Say.
THE ENEMY ALWAYS GETS A VOTE: An F-35 pilot’s take on the only ‘stealth fighter’ lost in combat.
COLD WAR II: China amassing arsenal of anti-satellite weapons.
STEAL THIS BOOK! Cockburn looted the looting book:
So, to get into the spirit of things, Cockburn pirated a PDF of the book, which was surprisingly easy to do. He also fired off this email to Bold Type Books, Osterweil’s publisher, to ask how they’d feel if the public ‘looted’ their book:
Dear Sir or Madam,
We at The Spectator have successfully pirated a copy of In Defense of Looting from the internet. Beats paying for it! We’d like your permission to republish the entire book on our website free of charge as an easily downloadable or shareable PDF file — in order to spread the message far and wide. Assume that’s fine? Please let us know if not.
So far, Bold Type hasn’t gotten back to us. Suddenly, they don’t seem too enthusiastic about subverting racist ideas like ‘you should pay for things you want.’ How strange!
When Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism was published in 2009, many bookstores hid their copies of it, simply based on the name and cover illustration of a smiley face with the tiny toothbrush moustache. I wonder how proudly bookstores in malls are displaying In Defense of Looting in riot-torn 2020?
(Classical reference in headline.)
CRY ME A RIVER: Antifa ‘Commander’ Collapses Crying Into the ‘Fetal Position’ When Arrested. “We have seen the enemy, and he is a wuss.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG: “NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league will imprint ‘End racism’ and ‘It takes all of us’ in the end zones at each stadium during the 2020 season.”
NOT TO MENTION THE DIRECTION OF ESPN: Former ESPN Reporter Says ‘Direction Of Country’ ‘Impacted’ His Decision To Move Back To Fox News.
NEVER MIND SUBWAYS: Study: COVID-19 can spread widely on buses without masks, social distancing.
BATTLESWARM BLOG: The Totalitarian Epistemological Closure of Social Justice. “I have this ginormous post on Social Justice that just keeps getting bigger and bigger, with more and more links, and I’ll never finish it unless I start breaking it down into smaller chunks. So this post focuses on two meaty pieces about the theoretical underpinnings of Social Justice, and how it suffers from epistemological closure.”
It’s a good read.
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER. End of an era: A Kennedy goes down to defeat in Massachusetts — for the first time ever.
Related: Howie Carr: Close the curtain, for good, on Camelot.
ONE WOULD NEED A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler moving to avoid rioters targeting his home.
SO DEBATES ARE A GO, APPARENTLY: Presidential debate schedule in Biden-Trump 2020 election released.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Josh Denny Shares Full Story Behind Being ‘Canceled’ by Woke Mob. “The companies are now just firing people because they don’t like their beliefs.”
THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEIR ADMINISTRATORS, AND COLLEAGUES, ARE MOSTLY GUTLESS: John McWhorter: Academics live in fear of the new campus Maoism.
And Jim Treacher spots the WaPo going with the Republicans pounce! angle for Pelosi’s clear violation of San Francisco’s laws:
As Treacher noted earlier:
WOW, HOW BAD MUST THEIR INTERNAL POLLS BE? Biden to Air Law-and-Order Ad Condemning Rioters and Looters. A friend on Facebook writes:
Two things must be happening for the Democratic nominee to cut ads against “rioters and looters.” It must be showing up in polling in negative ways; and it must be attributed mostly to the left. The last item is of course entirely correct: the overwhelming responsibility for the civic violence of the past several months is the left’s, as is the overwhelming responsibility for most of the civic violence of the past decade. There is a direct line from the Occupy violence (a leftist movement) to the first iteration of the Black Lives Matter violence (a leftist movement) to the violence in the early Trump administration (a more distributed leftist movement) to the latest iteration of the Black Lives Matter — and Antifa, depending on what sort of opaque analysis you adhere to — violence (again, the left). As has been noted in this very space time and again, in the context of the various left-wing city-center seizure exercises of the past few years — think back to the various mass marches and their expeditious nature — there is an apparatus that has been honed here, and it is willing to act.
There is also a cadre of veterans by now, from Manhattan to Ferguson to Portland to Kenosha, with a great deal of experience and understanding of how the system works, and how it breaks.
A few items on this:
1) The Democratic nominee, and the Democrats in general, will denounce specific acts — when compelled — but they aren’t going to denounce the ideological precursors to those acts. This matters a great deal, because the violence is not actually going to end until those ideologies lose their grip on the huge segments of the public psyche. The reality is that if you adhere to a certain set of propositions — for example, that policing in 2020 is morally indistinguishable from slave-catching in 1850, or that the American republic is fundamentally a white-supremacy superstructure, or that immorality is literally impossible for a person of color versus a white person — then violence is both inevitable and, by those premises, justified. There’s a direct line from the 1619 Project to Minneapolis and Portland wracked by unrest. If you are opposed to the existing insurrection on anything more than tactical grounds, you have to directly address this. They won’t.
2) The on-the-ground foot soldiers of the insurrection have no structural imperative to actually heed the Biden plea. They’re in control of the ideological narrative on the Democratic side — remember, this same Presidential campaign has literally been bailing some of them out of jail — and they don’t feel themselves under any particular constraint or pressure from the mostly Democratic city and prosecutorial officeholders in whose jurisdiction they operate. Ending violence means giving up the source of their own power, and no institution is going to do that. Furthermore, assuming for the sake of argument that their actions are in fact a boon to the President’s re-election, the smart radical might ask: so what? If you’re interested in accelerating a cycle of radicalization on the left-base, doesn’t that help?
3) The attempts on the right to mobilize counter-violence will be alternately stupid and doomed. (To be clear, I do not mean here Americans who defend their own property, lives, and livelihoods: but then, who can doubt that the famous 1992 rooftop Koreans would not today be jailed and prosecuted by aspiring Kamala Harrises in Democratic DA offices across the country?) Stupid because the way out of this is not bigger and better brawling street militias; and doomed because the left’s well-honed apparatus will beat them. The recent Portland incident, with a right-wing mob rolling into town with paint guns, and having one of their number literally executed by a left-wing mob with real guns, is the template. Anyone considering getting into the fight and taking on the bad guys, in a manner and place of the bad guys’ choosing, should stay home.
The last item begs the question: what is the way out of this? The proximate answer is simple: use the police, National Guard, and regular military available to nearly every chief executive at every level across the nation. Lawful authority, the sole actual voice of the American people, must assert itself. Every single mayor and governor presiding over a city in turmoil could do this immediately, and America could be at peace within a fortnight.
But they don’t.
Ask why.
Indeed. But once Biden comes out and condemns the rioters and looters, he won’t be able to complain when Trump starts arresting them.
Flashback: This Leftist Tantrum Is an Information Operation and Trump Is Winning It.
VICTORIA TAFT WITH AN EXCLUSIVE: Case of Portland Man Who Defended Himself Against Antifa Mob Heads to Supreme Court.
SCIENCE IS REAL: The Failed Experiment of Covid Lockdowns: New data suggest that social distancing and reopening haven’t determined the spread.
TrendMacro, my analytics firm, tallied the cumulative number of reported cases of Covid-19 in each state and the District of Columbia as a percentage of population, based on data from state and local health departments aggregated by the Covid Tracking Project. We then compared that with the timing and intensity of the lockdown in each jurisdiction. That is measured not by the mandates put in place by government officials, but rather by observing what people in each jurisdiction actually did, along with their baseline behavior before the lockdowns. This is captured in highly detailed anonymized cellphone tracking data provided by Google and others and tabulated by the University of Maryland’s Transportation Institute into a “Social Distancing Index.”
Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown—which range from April 5 to April 18—it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger Covid outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns—the District of Columbia, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had the heaviest caseloads.
It could be that strict lockdowns were imposed as a response to already severe outbreaks. But the surprising negative correlation, while statistically weak, persists even when excluding states with the heaviest caseloads. And it makes no difference if the analysis includes other potential explanatory factors such as population density, age, ethnicity, prevalence of nursing homes, general health or temperature. The only factor that seems to make a demonstrable difference is the intensity of mass-transit use.
We ran the experiment a second time to observe the effects on caseloads of the reopening that began in mid-April. We used the same methodology, but started from each state’s peak of lockdown and extended to July 31. Confirming the first experiment, there was a tendency (though fairly weak) for states that opened up the most to have the lightest caseloads. The states that had the big summer flare-ups in the so-called “Sunbelt second wave”—Arizona, California, Florida and Texas—are by no means the most opened up, politicized headlines notwithstanding.
The lesson is not that lockdowns made the spread of Covid-19 worse—although the raw evidence might suggest that—but that lockdowns probably didn’t help, and opening up didn’t hurt. This defies common sense. In theory, the spread of an infectious disease ought to be controllable by quarantine. Evidently not in practice, though we are aware of no researcher who understands why not.
We’re not the only researchers to have discovered this statistical relationship.
When people say “follow the science,” ask them what science they’re talking about.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Seattle Burns, Biden Spurns.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: When is cowardice the better part of valor?
Answer: When it involves a Democratic presidential nominee, silly.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
Seattle’s peaceful protestors peacefully attempt to burn cops to death.
Matt Yglesias is still the world’s worst and most desperate gaslighter.
Mr. Trump Goes to Kenosha (but Mr. Biden won’t).
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
NOT AN OVERSTATEMENT: Thank God for single-use plastic bags.
TANSTAAFL: The UK’s “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme where the government paid half of restaurant-goers meal tickets has been a success by its own lights, coaxing people to go out to eat again and even – mirabile dictu – being the rare example of a temporary government program that actually ended and came in under budget. However, the bill now has to be paid and the government is contemplating doubling corporation tax. Matt Kilcoyne explains why the program worked and how There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Tony Baltimore School Buckles to Anti-Semitic Demands of Black Lives Matter Activists. “Letter to historically Jewish school denounces ‘parasites,’ ‘wealth hoarding,’ and ‘Zionism.’
BAD IDEA. I THINK THE QUARANTINE HAS DEMONSTRATED THAT ACADEMICS AREN’T ESSENTIAL WORKERS: Ivy League prof floats idea of racial justice strike, hundreds of academics fall in line.
INSTITUTIONAL CORPORATE ANTI-AMERICANISM IS A THING: Frontier Airlines criticized after reportedly telling air marshal to remove flag face mask. “The National Association of Police Organizations first flagged the incident at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Aug. 23, when the air marshal ‘was told to remove his American Flag face mask because other passengers would find it offensive.'”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Democrats Can’t Go 1 Full Day Without Being Completely Insane. “The notion that the ‘values’ that ‘DC residents hold dear’ are now even dancing in the vicinity of canceling George Washington is all you need to know about how far afield the woke American Democrats have gone.”
THIS SEEMS LIKELY:
THE USS NEWPORT NEWS COMES HOME: The attack submarine USS Newport News (SSN 750) arrives at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Conn. for a scheduled homeport shift. Photo taken August 31, 2020.
IT’S REALLY AMAZING HOW THE DEMOCRATS HAVE GONE OUT OF THEIR WAY TO HAND HIM THIS ISSUE: President Trump touts law and order during Kenosha visit.
FOR THE CHILDREN™: New York City delays start of school year amid pressure from teachers union.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Debate commission stacked against Trump.
The Washington Brahmans that run and advise the Commission on Presidential Debates appear to be stacked against President Trump, raising concerns about the fairness of the debates set to begin later this month.
While politically bipartisan, most of the Republicans on the commission are so-called Never Trumpers who have been sharply critical of the president or donated to opponents in the past.
The commission sets the agenda and stage for the debates and plays the leading role in picking the media questioners.
Is there a single “nonpartisan” institution in Washington that hasn’t been revealed as corrupt?
WHEN YOU GIVE IN TO THE RED GUARDS, IT’S NOT A PRETTY PICTURE:
None of this, of course, will make our institutions any better, happier, or more welcoming. But it’s not meant to. It’s about power.
WHY IS THE FAR LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF ISLAMOPHOBIA? MSNBC’s Joy Reid flips an old attack on its head and compares Islamic extremists to Trump supporters.
The cable news host and conspiracy theory enthusiast remarked this week, amid a larger discussion on President Trump and radicalization, that leaders in “the Muslim world” often “encourage their supporters” to commit acts of violence against their enemies.
“When leaders, let’s say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence, including on their own bodies, in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy,” Reid said Monday evening, “we in the U.S. media describe that as, ‘They are radicalizing those people,’ particularly when they’re radicalizing young people.”
She added, “That’s how we talk about the way Muslims act. When you see what Donald Trump is doing, is that any different from what we describe as radicalizing people?”
This is weirdly reminiscent of when Reid promoted what she called a “salient” blog post in 2006 that stated: “My feeling is that the only reason that a world war between civilizations has not already broken out is that the vast majority of Muslims living in the world today are so desperately poor that they have the time, energy and resources for only the occasional burst of AK-47 fire into the air from the garbage and sewage laden streets outside of their mud huts.”
The post added, “Give them resources and I fear that they will come after us everywhere that they can find us, which is to say everywhere.”
Reid’s comments yesterday brought a stern rebuke from fellow leftists Rowaida Abdelaziz of the HuffPo, Sana Saeed of Al Jazeera+, as well as: Comrade Ilhan Omar [Who] Wants An Apology From Joy Reid of Democrat Party Press Office — MSNBC Branch.
THE LATEST STRATEGYPAGE STRATEGYTALK PODCAST: “Will China Trigger A War?” Link goes to youtube. MP3 download here. If you like the podcast, please consider subscribing.
RELATED ARTICLE: Scaring Chinese spies.
RELATED COLUMN: A few selected China War scenarios, including China versus China.
RELATED BOOK REVIEW: A review of the book Chinese Communist Espionage.
DEEP CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND: OK, not so deep. From May 2019, an analysis of Chinese spies targeting the MD Anderson cancer center and other research facilities in Houston’s Texas Medical center.
Beijing’s operational objective: By targeting MD Anderson and its affiliates in the Texas Medical Center, China’s communist elites seek to steal the creative genius, decades of training and years of cancer research of some of the world’s finest specialists and most brilliant doctors.
Beijing covets their knowledge because, when applied, it has great economic and political value. For example, China could produce and sell high-value, high-prestige pharmaceuticals, and improve its own medical programs, without spending a yuan on research.
Decouple? Absolutely. But also penalize and, when required, retaliate.
GLEICHSCHALTUNG: Teen Vogue pushes young people one step closer to socialism.
Teen. Vogue.
RULES FOR THEE, BUT NOT ARCH GRAND DUCHESS PELOSI VON BLOW WASH:
Even as Nancy Pelosi blocked aid to the small businesses suffering under destructive shutdowns she was treating herself to a blow out at an upscale salon in Pacific Heights, San Francisco — the most expensive neighborhood in the nation, in which Pelosi owns a $2.3 million estate.
Pelosi had repeatedly pushed localities to keep businesses closed so as to combat what she calls the “Trump virus.” Her salon treatment was still illegal under local bans on indoor salon activity.
Fox News received the tip when the livid owner of the salon, Erica Kious, saw the security footage of a blatantly unmasked Pelosi sauntering around the premises as a client of an independent stylist using her salon’s amenities not under the purview of the still-closed salon.
From the Washington Examiner. Read the whole thing and know this tawdry but typical example of leftist elitist hypocrisy speaks unfiltered volumes to cosmetologists, barbers and their customers.
UPDATE: Powerline examines the Arch Grand Duchess’ wash and blow.
FOR THE FOOTNOTE CROWD: The Fox News report that broke yesterday. It’s appeared on Instapundit several times and may ultimately rate as a Classic Reference.
ANTISEMITISM IN THE BLUE STATES: Tony Baltimore School Buckles to Anti-Semitic Demands of Black Lives Matter Activists: Letter to historically Jewish school denounces ‘parasites,’ ‘wealth hoarding,’ and ‘Zionism.’
I’m beginning to think that Black Lives Matter isn’t actually about tolerance.
GEORGE BARTLE: Beijing’s Strategic Ends: Harmony Through Hierarchy and the End of Choice.
Returning U.S. analytical models to a historically grounded understanding of China’s goals and methods refocuses efforts along a path that accepts China as being Chinese, not something that can be molded into a Western partner or that can be fully understood through Western political science theories. According to the neo-liberal and neo-realist theoretic perspectives guiding U.S. foreign policy, Chinese paradigms of empire, tribute, and vassalage had been relegated to the past, and therefore could be sublimated through a rules-based order governed by U.S.-created and led multilateral institutions. However, neo-liberal ideology failed to grasp that while the People’s Republic of China is a modern nation-state, it also maintains attributes of an ancient empire. This is not to say that China wants to abolish the current system or upend a rules-based order. Rather, Beijing seeks to bend global rules so they conform to its own worldview in an effort to define and direct international behavior, norms, and rituals.
Ultimately, a Stalinist-infused neo-tributary approach to international relations, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, seeks an end state where smaller countries are locked into a hierarchical relationship with Beijing—managed not just through hard power, but also deference and ritual—where freedom of choice and the ability to pivot between great powers give way to Beijing’s preferences. While Chinese academics have yet to coalesce around a single Sino-centric theory of international relations, one way of conceptualizing how Beijing achieves its strategic ends was articulated in a 2015 article by Su-Yan Pan and Joe Tin-Yao Lo, two scholars from the Hong Kong Institute of Education, who argued that China’s foreign policy is best understood through a neo-tributary framework that takes into account four core imperial concepts that continue to shape the Chinese Communist Party’s worldview.
Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute.
YOUNG IMMIGRANT STANDS UP TO RACISM AND FASCISM: Austin Tong is suing Fordham — to protect your rights.
SO START LICENSING MORE NUCLEAR REACTORS — AND LOTS OF THEM: Air conditioning technology is the great missed opportunity in the fight against climate change. “Soaring AC demand will threaten our power grids and accelerate global warming – unless we begin making major changes soon.”
THE MOSTLY PEACEFUL NATURE OF ARSON: Biden Waiting to Visit Kenosha To Avoid Upsetting ‘The Peaceful Nature’ Of Things, Says Campaign Spokeswoman.
In sharp contrast: Trump visits Kenosha after Jacob Blake shooting, civil unrest.
NEWS FROM THE HALLOWED HALLS OF ACADEME: Tenured Law Prof Diane Klein Sentenced To ‘Academic Death Penalty.’
IN THIS TARGET RICH ENVIRONMENT, THE BEE BRANCHES OUT: Video: Americans march through American streets chanting “Death to America!”
In a sane world, that would be satire. Alas. This is not a sane world. As for Not-the-bee: strength to your typing fingers, my friends. I look forward to the day when the Babylon Bee People take over all news reporting in America. After all, they’re the most reliable reporters we have.
OH, YES. TO THE MILLIONS OF WOMEN WHO CAN’T GET HAIR CARE, ADD THE MILLIONS OF SALON OWNERS BEING DRIVEN OUT OF BUSINESS: Pelosi used shuttered San Francisco hair salon for blow-out, owner calls it ‘slap in the face’.
WHEN TEACHERS GROOM: Texas weather forecaster found dead after confessing ‘sins’ on Facebook.
MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS ARE A LUXURY GOOD IN A TIME WHEN PEOPLE ARE RELEARNING FRUGALITY: Trump warns football, baseball players to not boycott games like NBA players.
LOOK WHO OWNS A PIECE OF A CHINESE FIRM SANCTIONED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: Despite it being buried in several layers of corporate registry obfuscation, Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Alana Goodman uncovered Hunter Biden’s 10 percent stake in Bohai Harvest RST.
“Bohai Harvest RST Shanghai Equity, an investment firm that Hunter Biden owns a stake in, initially invested in Megvii, a sanctioned Chinese tech company that specializes in facial recognition software, in 2017, according to the company’s website. The firm holds a nearly 2 percent stake in Megvii through two holding companies, according to a prospectus filed by Megvii as part of its application for a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange last year,” Goodman reports.
“Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Megvii to its list of sanctioned entities that were ‘implicated in human-rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.'”
Some investments are more equal than others.
