January 7, 2025
THE ARTIST AS TYRANT. “Modern art declared war on tradition, on convention, on morality, on historical Western notions about the place of beauty and human dignity in artistic production. Styles were invented or imported from alien cultures, never consciously evolved from the European masters. Modernism, like Leninism, wished to bully rather than seduce the community into a better future.”
I’ve had some thoughts of my own on the tyrant as artist.
BUT HOW WILL DEMOCRATS “FIND” ENOUGH VOTES TO SWING ELECTIONS?
🚨BREAKING: President Trump announces plans to push for all votes to be fully counted by 10:00 PM on future Election Nights.
pic.twitter.com/BqlWbk8Exm— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 7, 2025
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Waterpik Cordless Pulse Rechargeable Portable Water Flosser. #CommissionEarned
MAYBE REAL UBI HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED: UBI Hurts Recipients. “But mere historical failure has never deterred the radical left from pursuing their utopian schemes (‘And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire’), so they tried to test UBI, yet again, and the result, yet again, was discouraging failure.”
IT’S ALL BULLSHIT AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT NOW:
The January 6, 2025 certification of Trump’s election victory is the first time in fifty-two years that no Democrats challenged the certification of a GOP victory in a presidential election. Dems in the House challenged the results in 1981, 1985, 1989, 2001, 2005, & 2017. /1 pic.twitter.com/yQopzN4Hkb
— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) January 7, 2025
When John Lewis, the House member leading several of these challenges, died during the first Trump term, the NY Times celebrated him as the “conscience of the Congress.” His futile election challenges didn’t make the cut for the obituary. /3 pic.twitter.com/QSx3GhtNd6
— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) January 7, 2025
QUESTION ASKED: Who Needs Communists When You Have Home-Grown Progressives?
Last week Victor Davis Hanson noted that Germany’s current de-industrialization, born of its fanatical “Net-Zero” climate mania that has resulted in ruinously high energy prices, resembles a self-imposed “Morgenthau Plan” from World War II.
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Realize that the Morgenthau Plan would have ruled out post-war Germany as potent ally against the Soviet Union, especially significant after NATO was formed later. It was designed to ensure that Germany was poor and weak—easy pickings, perhaps, for the Soviet Union after the war.
Just how did such a punitive plan come about in the first place? It turns out that Morgenthau’s senior staff was highly penetrated by Soviet agents and Communist sympathizers. Most of the names of his staff have been forgotten, with the partial exception of Harry Dexter White, who committed suicide in the late 1940s right after both Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers named White as a Soviet agent. But M. Stanton Evans (my first mentor) and Herbert Rommerstein, long time senior staff member of the House Intelligence Committee, identified the others from corroborating testimony and the decrypted VENONA documents that came to light in the late 1990s. In addition to White, other Morgenthau staffers who were Communist sympathizers or perhaps even paid agents included Solomon Adler, Josiah Dubois, Sonia Gold, Harold Glasser, William Taylor, V. Frank Coe (who defected to Communist China after the war), and Irving Kaplan. Many of these figures were involved in developing the Morgenthau Plan.
Why, it’s as, “in a global sense McCarthy was on to something. McCarthy may have exaggerated the scope of the problem but not by much… The Age of McCarthyism, it turns out, was not the simple witch hunt of the innocent by the malevolent as two generations of high school and college students have been taught.”
ED MORRISSEY: EU Leaders to Musk: How Dare You Interfere With Our Interference!
According to BBC Newsnight, Britain's socialist government are considering ending their security partnership with the U.S. unless Donald Trump distances himself from Elon Musk's views on grooming gangs.pic.twitter.com/024Qbg1iaH
— Ben Kew (@ben_kew) January 7, 2025
So let’s get this straight. British national security is more dependent on keeping silent about the Pakistani rape gangs than it is on a military alliance with the United States? Is that what Starmer seriously wants to argue? Is that what voters in the UK believe, too? Because we can take our ball and go home any time, and leave Starmer and Macron to deal with Vladimir Putin on their own. Have fun storming that castle.
However, I’d bet that Starmer went way over his political skis with that suggestion. Trump will not just call Starmer’s bluff, but now he and Musk can raise Starmer a Zuckerberg, too. (How very Meta!) The EU Left is already in retreat over its refusal to enforce laws and control migration, as well as their economic policies and arrogant elitism. Starmer and Macron are political dead men walking at this point, and they know it. That’s why they are desperately trying to quash Twitter/X in the EU, only now that Zuckerberg has foresworn progressive “fact checking,” the EU will have to play Whack-a-Mole on several popular social-media platforms rather than just focus on Musk.
Much more like this, please.
DANIEL MCCARTHY: Donald Trump’s Worldwide Election. “It’s almost as if Trump himself were on the ballot in other advanced democracies.”
SOMETIMES ANTISEMITISM ISN’T: “I am innocent” says Boca Raton Professor Accused of Living a “Nazi Fantasy”.
INCENTIVES MATTER: Interest in permanent contraception rises after Roe vs. Wade reversal.
SOME? McDonald’s is ending some of its DEI practices.
McDonald’s is the latest US corporation – and among the largest – to back off some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices, as a Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action and conservative backlash to those programs continues to lead businesses to reevaluate their diversity pledges.
The company in a statement Monday said it is sunsetting its specific diversity goals, including requiring its suppliers to commit to certain DEI targets. And it will stop participating in external surveys that measure corporate diversity.
McDonald’s is also changing the name of its diversity team to the Global Inclusion Team – a common practice for many other companies that have rolled back diversity pledges.
“This name change is more fitting for McDonald’s in light of our inclusion value and better aligns with this team’s work,” McDonald’s said in the statement.
McDonald’s would be wise to eliminate the team instead of renaming it — before it metastasizes and they go Full Jaguar.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Left Eats Its Own After High-Profile Activists Accept Medals From ‘Genocide Joe.’
Online progressives and leftists attacked humanitarian activists Bono and chef Jose Andres for accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden on Saturday, claiming the pair were endorsing genocide.
Bono, the world-famous Irish frontman to the rock band U2, and Jose Andres, a Spain-born chef who has risen to prominence for his charity work with his World Central Kitchen program, were two of the 19 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor attainable in America, on Saturday.
While both celebrities have previously been on the receiving end of liberal praise for their charity and compassion, pro-Palestinian activists on X ripped them for appearing with President Biden amid what the activists claim is a presidency that has supported a genocide propagated by Israel.
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“Biden is giving the award because Bono is the only Irish Catholic who doesn’t care at all about the Palestinians,” Jeet Heer, writer at the left-wing magazine The Nation, said on X.
Many of Bono’s own countrymen signaled their disdain for his actions.
“Irish rock star Bono shows 15 months of managing to ignore the Gaza Genocide really pays off,” one Irish blogger wrote.
“As an Irish person I’m disgusted by this image. We stand with the oppressed. We don’t stand with imperialist evil murderous monsters. Tens of thousands of us have been protesting here against this evil. Shame on you Bono,” Irish musician Martin Leahy tweeted Sunday.
Flashback: Antisemitism has made life in Ireland unbearable, say Israelis.
THE DALAI LAMA HAS OFTEN SEEMED SURPRISINGLY BASED:
This is incredible…
A BBC reporter interviewed the Dalai Lama about immigration and the West.
Q: “If people from India or the Middle East want to stay in Europe, shouldn’t they be allowed?”
A: “Limited number… ok. Otherwise Europe becomes Muslim. Better in their own land.” pic.twitter.com/00F5n2EqnR
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) January 6, 2025
Update (from Steve): Not so surprising, really. The Dalai Lama comes from an occupied country where the native Tibetans are becoming outnumbered by colonizers from Communist China.
WHY WE MUST EXPOSE THE CRIMINAL FRAUD OF THOSE BEHIND BIDEN’S DISASTROUS PRESIDENCY:
I have, as you can tell, too many questions, but I will limit myself to the two big ones.
The first one is: What actual persons in the administration — names and addresses, please — made the calls in the persistent trampling on our citizen rights?
Someone ordered for Catholic groups and anti-transgender parents to be treated as terrorists by the FBI and Homeland Security. Someone erected and allocated funds for a tentacular online censorship structure that silenced or downranked opinions distasteful to those in power.
Someone “debanked,” or cast out of the financial system, persons lawfully working on artificial intelligence and crypto. Someone perverted the prosecutorial authority to hound and persecute political opponents, particularly of the Trumpist variety.
We know Joe Biden didn’t commit any of those unconstitutional acts. He was too far gone.
So who did? And what should be their penalty?
My second question is: Where the heck were the news media while this clown show was going on?
Acting as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, thrilled, like pre-Internet smalltown newspaper movie critics, to be so close to the action and the spotlights that they would accept any scrap of info the White House fed them. Because of their party allegiance, they were terrorized to bite the hand that feeds them, no matter how snotty Biden has always been with reporters, long before his brain completely withered away. And were equally terrorized that if they spoke up about Sundown Joe’s enfeebled condition, the other party’s presidential candidate would use their words in a campaign ad.
Old and busted: “Speaking truth to power.” The new hotness? Terrified of being the person who begins the preference cascade.
Related: The Biggest Media Story of Biden’s Presidency. They failed to cover the cognitive decline of the commander in chief until it served them to do so.
REFORMERS ASK: WHAT’S THE ACTUAL GOAL OF HIGHER ED? Students overwhelmingly say it’s to get a job. But it’s not efficient at delivering on that, and that’s not the traditional goal of higher ed (nor, in my opinion, should it be–that should be K-12 and tech schools.) So what are we going for? Interesting thoughts here.
BIDEN’S PARTING GIFTS: In its final days, the Biden administration announces new water-heater ban. “Under the policy, new non-condensing, natural gas-fired water heaters will be prohibited for sale starting in 2029 due to concerns about carbon-dioxide emissions. The policy comes during President Biden’s twilight days in the White House and was quietly announced without a press release.”
Previously: Schumer mocks GOP: ‘Nobody is taking away your gas stove.’
BREAKING NEWS — MUSK AND TRUMP WIN AGAIN: Meta Announces Reduced Censorship and Elimination of ‘Independent’ Fact Checkers as Too Biased.
HE SHOULD GRANT THEM: J6ers Ask Trump for Pardons in DC as Election Is Certified.
BEAT THE COLD: Jackery Solar Generator Explorer 500. #CommissionEarned #CommissionEarned
GOOD ADVICE: ‘Give yourself a break’ is bad advice: Do difficult things!
Jake wonders why liberal arts colleges “center” their black students by “encouraging them to experience college as a source of ‘racial battle fatigue’.”
I envision kids watching the The Little Engine That Couldn’t on their phones: “I think I can’t. I think I can’t. It’s too hard. Climbing mountains is a vestige of white patriarchy! Look how brave I am for being able to say that I can’t! I thought I couldn’t!”
American culture treats “successful people like they somehow cheated to get there and poor people as if they’re noble by virtue of being poor,” writes John Hawkins, in another response to Vivek Ramaswamy’s “culture of mediocrity” critique.
Parents should be pushier, he writes. Kids aren’t “pieces of glass that will break if they’re pushed too hard.”
Kids usually live up to — or down to — expectations. “The soft bigotry of low expectations” was one of George W Bush’s few memorable (and correct) phrases and of course, the Left hated him for it.
THE ENEMY WITHIN: ‘Free, free Palestine’ chants break out at historian conference as group passes anti-Israel resolution. “The American Historical Association passed a resolution condemning Israel and proceeded to break out in chants of ‘free, free Palestine’ over the weekend.”
Free, free academia.
STREAMLINE IT. AND CANCEL SLS WHILE YOU’RE AT IT: What Will NASA Look Like Under a Second Trump Administration?