January 31, 2018

IN THE EMAIL FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY:  Mercenary Calling.

Exoplanets. Terrorists. Lawyers…

Calvin Tondini has his first client, but he may be in over his head.

It’s the twenty-second century. Humanity’s first and only interstellar starship returns safely. Its mission to discover a habitable planet succeeded beyond all hopes, but there’s one problem. Captain Paolina Nigmatullin of the USS Aeneid left an unsanctioned human colony behind and now stands charged with mutiny.

Despite a somewhat spontaneous approach to his own career, life, and limb, Calvin intends to map a more cautious path for his new client. Captain Nigmatullin, however, shows an unnerving penchant for talk shows–appearing on them, that is–and otherwise ignoring her attorney’s sober counsel.

How can Calvin ensure his client’s freedom when death stalks the Aeneid‘s crew, and Nigmatullin herself hides secrets from everyone, even her lawyer?

FACE IT, BLAZE ORANGE DOESN’T REALLY LOOK GOOD ON ANYONE:  Lawmaker says female hunters prefer to feel pretty in pink.

HOLLYWOOD FINDS NEW WAYS TO ROLL LEFT:   ‘Guardians’ Director Plays Hitler Card 8 Times Vs. Trump.

IT’S OKAY, THE NFL HAS BEEN DOING THEIR BEST TO DISSUADE PEOPLE FROM TRAVELING TO WATCH THE GAME… OR REALLY FROM WATCHING THE GAME AT ALL:  The Super Bowl could turn into a giant petri dish of influenza.

I REMAIN CONFIDENT IN THE INGENUITY OF OUR AIRLINES:  Airlines are running out of ways to charge customers more.

WELL, SOME GOOD FALLOUTOF #METOO:  David Stras confirmed to Eighth Circuit.

BUT DOES ANYONE ELSE?  #SOTU: Democrats Love Dead Kennedys.

INTERESTING:  Trump administration yanks funding for “Climate-Related Fellowships”. So no tears dollars for fears?

BREATHE EASY:  Why 2017’s “Third Warmest Year on Record” is a Yawner.

ONLY IF YOU HAVE A VERY ODD DEFINITION OF POORER:  The Poor Get Poorer?

SUSCEPTIBILITY TO SOCIAL PRESSURE IS A TERRIBLE BURDEN:  Why women always want men they can’t have.

January 30, 2018

HOT AIR: The very tremendous State of the Union.

TONIGHT’S OPEN THREAD: Talk about the State of the Union or whatever you want.

AT AMAZON, save in Movies and TV.

Plus, fresh deals in Industrial and Scientific.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “An excellent speech, extremely well delivered, I think.”

MOVING TO WOODFORD RESERVE, AS A TOAST: A toast to a superb speech that acknowledged America’s overwhelmingly wonderful reality and our promising opportunities.

The Prez took deserved shots at Russia and China. Thank you, sir. Nice take down factually and morally of North Korea.

Yet The Nancy and Slow Chuck sat on their gnarly fingers. Stupid. Very stupid. Totally stupid…ok, it’s Nancy and Chuck…

IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN HILLARY DOES IT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

LINGUISTIC KILL SHOT IS A COOL TERM: But here’s another take, Glenn: Trump’s speech is a superb example of political creativity. He has created political space for productive change on immigration. He has used a form of political and media judo. He has employed Democrat media tactics –here, before you are the victims of your policies — to hammer obstructionist Democrat policies. “Get the job done.” Trump is about getting it done. No wonder the swamp hates him. The swamp is invested in perpetual grievance.

DEMOCRATS: TRUMP IS SO DIVISIVE! Trump:

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America’s children, America’s struggling workers, and America’s forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties — Democrats and Republicans — to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans — to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Related:

I THINK SCOTT ADAMS WOULD CALL THIS A “LINGUISTIC KILL SHOT” OR SOMETHING: Trump: “Americans are dreamers, too.”

IT’S MANHATTANS HERE: Decent rye, Antica sweet vermouth and Luxardo cherries. Slice of orange. Dash of orange bitters. Thoroughly enjoying the President’s speech. Super to see Rep. Scalise recognized.

IT’S KNOB CREEK HERE, NOT BASIL HAYDEN, but I won’t be drunkblogging like Stephen Green. Leave it to the pros!

UPDATE: Okay, I got a little snarky on Twitter.

1968: IN 50 YEARS WE’LL HAVE FLYING CARS!

2018: Teens, Please Stop Eating Laundry Detergent.

JIMMY KIMMEL STRIKES OUT WITH STORMY DANIELS. Daniels: Yeah, that “affair” with Trump never happened. “I am not denying this affair because I was paid ‘hush money’ as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. I am denying this affair because it never happened.” Fake news!

SCOTCH & SOTU: I’m drunkblogging Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address, along with the rest of PJM’s Hot Mic crew.

The liveblog page updates automatically, so just click and scroll.

Tonight’s cocktail is Basil Hayden’s and a splash, if you’re playing along at home.

PAUL RYAN: It’s time to “cleanse” the FBI.

STAY TUNED, THERE’S MORE: DOJ Inspector General focused on McCabe’s role in the final weeks of the 2016 election.

INVESTIGATIONS: U.S. Probes Apple Over Updates That Slow Older iPhones.

D. C. McALLISTER: Americans See the State of the Union as Strong Economically, But They’re Divided on Almost Everything Else.

Read the whole thing.

OUCH:

WHY WE TALK DIFFERENT: Appalachian English.

FEMINISTS’ NEW TARGET: Working-Class Women.

PLANET FITNESS: A Rant.

WHY DO DEMOCRATS HATE AMERICA? Chuck Schumer is torpedoing the infrastructure plan before it’s even announced.

I guess it provides too many jobs for burly men.

CHANGE: 2020 Ford Explorer Goes Rear-Wheel Drive, Steals Lincoln Engine.

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND VAPID: Sarah Hoyt asks, Who Are These “People’s State of the Union” People?

THE LEFT EATS ITS OWN, PART MMMMCCCLXVII: Climate alarmist Bill Nye called out by “500 Women Scientists” for legitimizing climate skepticism by attending the State of the Union address. “500 Women Scientists,” by the way, appears to be four women.

THE CHIPS ARE DOWN: Bone Marrow and Heart Attack. “They have learned that a bizarre accumulation of mutated stem cells in bone marrow increases a person’s risk of dying within a decade, usually from a heart attack or stroke, by 40 or 50 percent. They named the condition with medical jargon: clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential. CHIP has emerged as a risk for heart attack and stroke that is as powerful as high LDL or high blood pressure but it acts independently of them. And CHIP is not uncommon.”

THIS WAS MERELY A MATTER OF TIME. ESPN Host: Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish Mascot Is Offensive, Needs to Change.

ESPN morphed into MSNBC so quickly, it was impossible not to notice.

NEW YOU CAN USE: What Millennials Should Know About the Soviet Union.

GOOD: Saliva-based HIV test may be as reliable as blood test.

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Feminists have a new target: working-class women.

This is the nature of feminism today: it has become a well-off women’s racket. It has become a means for educated women to secure their position in the media, business and politics. Witness the new feminism’s myopic obsession with numbers of women on company boards, or the exact ratio of male-to-female guests on the Today programme, or how female MPs are addressed on Twitter. The vast majority of women, and men, do not work in these fields, of course. Feminism, clearly, isn’t for them. In fact, feminism is very often against them, especially if they are those ‘bad women’ who take jobs or have points of view that mainstream feminists disapprove of. Those women will be raged against by the sisterhood.

But they aren’t all that “new” a target; as Fred Siegel wrote a few years ago in The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class, “The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. ‘Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class,’ Parrington insisted, referring to both democracy and capitalism, ‘and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a civilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a thing to be respected.’”

Based on the number of #metoo tags emanating from women working in Hollywood and the news media, that project doesn’t appear to be going all that well for the left.

WELL, THEY’RE NOT EXACTLY AWASH WITH OIL REVENUES ANYMORE: Russia military spending almost halved from 2015 peak and Russia near financial collapse.

Thanks, Frackers! Weird that the people most worried about Russians under their beds are the least supportive of fracking, the most powerful tool in existence against Russian power projection.

AT AMAZON, save on Power & Hand Tools.

THIS IS BAD: Berserk leprosy bacteria are wildly mutating to become extremely drug resistant.

THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE IS TOUGHER TO BEAT THAN MANY PEOPLE EXPECTED: Mazda Says Its Next-Generation Gasoline Engine Will Run Cleaner Than an Electric Car.

J.D. TUCCILLE: FBI’s Unsavory History Casts Shadow Over Debate About Political Meddling.

Trump may have had reason to be concerned about FBI politicking. Leaked text messages shared by two romantically involved FBI employees who were involved in the probe into Russian meddling revealed their belief that Trump is “loathsome” and an “idiot.” At the same time, they had a soft spot for his major opponent, Hillary Clinton, noting that they should take it easy in investigating her conduct because “She might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear'”

This has Republicans waging what Vox’s Jane Coaston calls a “war on the FBI,” claiming that partisan bias extends beyond those two FBI texting buddies to taint the whole bureau. Democrats beg to differ. “I can assure you that the men and women at the bureau are dedicated public servants committed to defending the American people and upholding the law,” protests Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.).

But those “dedicated public servants” who are “upholding the rule of law” are the institutional descendants of the folks the bipartisan Church Committee said “all too often disregarded the Constitutional rights of Americans.” In their domestic operations, the report revealed, “FBI intelligence reports on protest activity and domestic dissent accumulated massive information on lawful activity and law-abiding citizens.”

And yes, the FBI used the information it gathered to become an active player in politics.

Maybe we should just abolish the Bureau.

EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING: Joni Mitchell’s “brilliant art was always a product of artifice as much as it was of honesty.”

IN THE MAIL: From Albert Ellis, How To Make Yourself Happy.

Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals. New deals every hour. We very much appreciate your buying via InstaPundit Amazon links!

WILLING THE STASI INTO EXISTENCE: Oklahoma State Activists Want a Bias Response Team with the Power to Punish Racially Insensitive Speech.

I TALK TO MIKE STOPA AND TODD FEINBURG on the Harvard Lunch Club Podcast. Breakout quote: “Apollo was like a command economy. And a command economy is like being on steroids – your muscles get big but your testicles shrink, so it’s ultimately not sustainable.”

BURIED LEDE: NANCY PELOSI FINALLY UTTERS A TRUE STATEMENT! Pelosi Gets Testy With Chris Cuomo: ‘You Really Don’t Know What You’re Talking About’ [VIDEO].

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: VIDEO: Students hate Trump’s SOTU…before it even happens!

Related: Yale student says classmates insist on ‘leftist viewpoints.’ “A Yale University student recently criticized her peers for shunning ‘alternative voices’ after she was ‘roasted’ for defending British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie in class.
Anushree Agrawal, who comes from a similar culture as Rushdie, says her classmates blasted Rushdie as a ‘woman-hater,’ then attacked her for explaining that he was simply depicting the world that he was writing about.”

RADICAL CHIC, THE GERITOL YEARS:

Establishment Media Bury Obama-Farrakhan Photo.

● “Managing editor of The Beat DC, Tiffany Cross, said Democrats should treat their state of the union response like a ‘trailer for the black panther party,’ Sunday on MSNBC’s ‘AM Joy.’”

The deep meaning of Keith Ellison.

In 2005, on the 35 anniversary of Leonard and Felicia Bernstein’s infamous fundraising party for the Black Panthers in their uber-swank Park Ave. duplex that inspired Tom Wolfe’s epochal “Radical Chic” article for New York magazine, I asked: “Has radical chic run its course?… the next four years will be interesting to watch, indeed. The wheels came off [for the Democrats as they moved further and further left during McGovern’s run] in ’72. This might be their last chance to put them back on.”

Given Alan Dershowitz’s shocked reaction this past week that he would not have campaigned for Obama had he known about his affiliation with Farrakhan, burying the Obama-Farrakhan photo may have bought the Democrats some breathing room in 2008. But radical chic continues to be one of the key motivators for that “progressive” party, despite being a half-century old worldview.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN: Elon Musk Sells $3.5 Million Worth Of Flamethrowers In One Day.

THE HILL: Expect Trump’s State of the Union to celebrate America — and provide a roadmap to the future. Seems like a safe bet.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: SOTU Day, ‘Andy’s office’ is Empty and Much, Much More. “Presidential-hopeful Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) is bringing the wacky Mayor of San Juan. Some politicians will be bringing members of the DACA crew. Some will not show up at all. The left will also offer no less than six different responses to Trump’s speech.”

I’ll drunkblog SOTU tonight, with the able assistance of the Hot Mic crew.

THEY THOUGHT THEY’D GET AWAY WITH IT, AND THEY THOUGHT THEY’D BE REWARDED FOR THEIR MALFEASANCE: Victor Davis Hanson: Hillary’s ‘Sure’ Victory Explains Most Everything.

The traditional way of looking at the developing scandals at the FBI and among holdover Obama appointees in the DOJ is that the bizarre atmospherics from candidate and President Trump have simply polarized everyone in Washington, and no one quite knows what is going on.

Another, more helpful, exegesis, however, is to understand that if we’d seen a Hillary Clinton victory in November 2016, which was supposed to be a sure thing, there would now be no scandals at all.

That is, the current players probably broke laws and committed ethical violations not just because they were assured there would be no consequences but also because they thought they’d be rewarded for their laxity. . . .

If we consider the mentality of government elite careerists, we see that the election-cycle machinations and later indiscretions of Strzok and Page were not liabilities at all. They were good investments. They signaled their loyalty to the incoming administration and that they were worthy of commendation and reward.

Hillary Clinton’s sure victory certainly also explains the likely warping of the FISA courts by FBI careerists seeking to use a suspect dossier to surveille Trump associates — and the apparent requests by Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and others to read surveilled transcripts of Trump associates, unmask names, and leak them to pet reporters. Again, all these insiders were playing the careerist odds. What we view as reprehensible behavior, they at the time considered wise investments that would earn rewards with an ascendant President Hillary Clinton.

Yep.

THE WEEK: “America’s Constitution is terrible. Let’s throw it out and start over.”

As Steve Hayward writes in response, “It’s Official: Liberals Hate Constitutional Government.”

THEY’RE NOT MISSING IT. THEY’RE TRYING TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE ELSE MISSES IT: Mollie Hemingway: Media Is Missing “Something Huge” Happening At FBI.

You had Bruce Ohr, who was demoted twice.

You had Peter Strzok, who had to be taken off the case.

You had Baker, who is gone, and Rybicki, also.

This is quite a collection of people, obviously, there is something huge going on. And I think a lot of people in the media are missing this very large story. Perhaps this memo will help us learn a little bit more about what it is that is causing these changes.

Well, in the immortal words of Jim Treacher:

MICHAEL BARONE: All that you — and Justice Anthony Kennedy — need to know about redistricting and gerrymandering.

Does gerrymandering matter? Not as much as you might think. You’re sure to be wrong if you take at face value the rhetoric of liberals who seem to place most of the blame for Republican majorities in the House of Representatives on partisan map-making.

I have argued repeatedly — in December 2017, September 2017, July 2015, October 2014, September 2014, January 2014, and February 2013, that redistricting is less important in securing Republican congressional and legislative majorities than demographic clustering — the fact that Democratic voters are increasingly concentrated in black, Hispanic, gentry liberal and university areas.

That’s because Democrats’ huge majorities in districts dominated by such voters do nothing to elect Democrats in the remaining districts. A party with clustered constituencies is inevitably disadvantaged by a system of equal-population legislative districts. That conclusion is confirmed by the research of political scientists Jowei Chen (University of Michigan) and Jonathan Rodden (Stanford), as reported in the New York Times in 2014, and it was confirmed once again last week by the work of David Wasserman and three colleagues at FiveThirtyEight in their Atlas of Redistricting. . . .

Wasserman and his colleagues, FiveThirtyEight journalists Aaron Bycoffe, Ella Koeze and Julia Wolfe, have produced splendid work. It should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding redistricting, and for those — including Justice Anthony Kennedy — who hope there is or think there must be some easy answer, some computer algorithm or legal formula, which will guarantee fair, non-partisan redistricting. There isn’t.

The best solution, and one I have long advocated, is strict application of the equal-population standard adopted by the Supreme Court in 1964, which limits more stringently than most observers think the ability of redistricters to benefit their party or faction. This also has the advantage of being easily, ministerially (a legal term) enforced by the courts in a non-partisan manner.

All I know is that when gerrymandering benefited Democrats, it was just only of those hilarious political shenanigans that happen. It wasn’t until it looked like it might benefit Republicans that it became an Urgent Threat To The Republic.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

And in general, the high-horse reaction to the Trump presidency is particularly irritating because of its admixture of dishonesty, incompetence, and deep sanctimony. I mean, I know we have the worst political class in our history, but do they have to work so hard to prove it?

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: California teacher slams military members as ‘lowest of the low’ in classroom rant caught on video.

Shades of John Kerry’s infamous 2006 “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq” line in 2006 at Pasadena City College.

JOEL KOTKIN: The Screwed Millennial Generation Gets Smart.

Despite the hype from the press and urban planners, millennials are following in the footsteps of previous generations by locating on the periphery major metropolitan areas and Sun Belt cities, most of which are simply agglomerations of suburbs.

This pattern seems certain to accelerate as millennials enter their thirties, the age when contemporary populations tend to marry, settle down, and have children. To be sure, notes Pew, more 18- to 34-year-olds now live with their parents than with spouses or significant others for the first time since the question was first asked in the 1880s. But when they do leave the nest, albeit later than in previous generations, they are becoming adults whose collective decisions are not so different from those of their parents.

Nice to see them normalizing.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Here’s How Reports of Trump’s Stormy Daniels Affair Gave SHARK CHARITIES a Boost Worldwide.

BYRON YORK: A Tale of Two Memos: The GOP Memo tries to discover what the FBI was doing; the Dem memo is about knocking down the GOP memo.

WELL, GOOD: North Korea, Under Sanctions Strain, Dials Back Military Exercises. “Winter maneuvers are less extensive than in previous years; restrictions on fuel imports are seen as having an effect.”

The North Korean maneuvers, which typically run from December through March, were slow in getting started and are less extensive than usual, according to American officials familiar with intelligence reports and experts outside the government.

One possibility is that restrictions on shipments of oil and refined petroleum products to North Korea imposed by the United Nations have led the country, which has one of the world’s largest standing armies, to conserve fuel by cutting back on ground and air training exercises.

“Where this will have an effect is on ground-force readiness,” said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. , a military analyst for 38 North, a website on North Korean affairs run by Johns Hopkins University’s U.S.-Korea Institute. “Military units have to train to maintain their proficiency.”

Still, military analysts inside and outside the government cautioned that the development hasn’t yet led to a dramatic decrease in the North’s military capabilities. There also appear to be no signs that sanctions are limiting North Korea’s push to strengthen its nuclear and missile arsenal.

This is no time to go all wobbly.

REPORT: McCabe Stepped Down After Pressure From FBI Director.

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe stepped down from his post after facing pressure from FBI Director Christopher Wray to leave the position, The New York Times reported Monday.

Wray reportedly said he was concerned about an inspector general report about McCabe and other top Department of Justice officials’ actions during the 2016 presidential race.

The FBI was investigating both Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State and the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia at the time.

Wray offered for McCabe to be moved to another job at a lower level, but McCabe instead chose to leave the bureau.

McCabe’s departure had been anticipated for some time, and The Washington Post had reported he would retire in March.

But the announcement that he was stepping down on Monday was a surprise, and the Times reported that FBI employees learned of the development from the news as the FBI did not announce the exit internally.

You know, various anonymous sources have been saying that a housecleaning at DOJ and in the intelligence agencies was coming this spring. I was skeptical, but . . . .

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Historically black colleges and universities struggle with rock-bottom graduation rates.

ANDREW MCCARTHY: Rod Rosenstein Is Shirking His Duty to Supervise Robert Mueller. “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been AWOL for seven months. We seem to have forgotten that Mueller answers to Rosenstein — and Rosenstein seems only too happy to have us forget.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rankings Scandal Unfolds At Temple Business School. “U.S. News has announced what may be the most egregious case yet: Temple’s online MBA has been ranked #1 for the past four years, based in part on its reporting that 100% of its entering students took the GMAT. Only 20% of its 2017 entering class did so.”

I’M DOWN WITH THE DARK CHOCOLATE AND RED WINE BUT SUGGEST GOING EASY ON THE GARLIC:  Eat these foods to give your sex drive a boost.

I FOR ONE WELCOME…   The key to surviving the forthcoming robot revolution.

NEWS YOU CAN USE:  Your dog could get the flu — here’s how to prevent it.

SECRET FLORIDA MAN!  Naked man high on meth: Sex made me crash my truck.

OR AT LEAST OF:  An Ideology to Die For.

LIFE PERSISTS IN IMITATING THE ONION:  Stranger Than Fiction.

WELL, LEFTISM IS JUST NEUROTIC NONSENSE:  Leftist Writer Says Patriotic War Movies are Just “Masculine Nonsense.”

MUCH SHOCKED.  SO MY FACE:  Hillary Clinton Shielded Top Adviser In Spite Of Sexual Harassment Claims.

NO.  PROBABLY NOT EVEN THEN:  You Can Have my Meat When You Pry It from My Cold, Dead Hands.

THIS IS THE DAUGHTER OF A FRIEND:  And she sings beautifully.

January 29, 2018

POLITICIANS ARE HYPOCRITES: Three minutes: Watch Kirsten Gillibrand go from demanding zero tolerance for sexual misconduct to stammering about Bill Clinton.

AT AMAZON, deals in Men’s Shaving and Hair Removal.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Easy-pass policy fails students. To be fair, the policy was never there for students’ benefit.

I DO NOT TRUST THE INTERNET OF THINGS*: Google Sells Out of Creepy New Always-On Camera That Recognizes, Watches Your Family.

* To coin an Insta-phrase.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: The 2018 Grammys Ratings Were an Unmitigated Disaster.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Are The Democrats Fighting A Civil War? In a way, they never stopped.

OPEN THREAD: Post, read, and enjoy!

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON IS RIGHT ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP: Sleepy U.S. teens are running on empty. Sleep deprivation is an invisible public health crisis.

TRANSPARENCY: House Intelligence Committee votes to release controversial GOP surveillance memo.

UPDATE: And note something that’s being spun away in coverage:

UNEXPECTEDLY! Exxon Mobil to invest $50 billion in US over 5 years, citing tax reform.