GLOBAL WARMING CAUSES SCHIZOPHRENIA: Compare and contrast how dramatically different two political candidates are treated by the “objective” MSM when discussing global warming during “get to know the candidate” editorial briefings, over at Ed Driscoll.com.
Archive for 2014
May 5, 2014
CHANGE: USA Today/ Pew Poll shows biggest advantage for Republicans in 2 decades.
Nice poll numbers, kid. Don’t get cocky, to coin an Insta-phrase.
FINALLY, AN AG WHO UNDERSTANDS HIS DUTY: But unfortunately, it’s not Eric Holder. Arkansas AG Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, supports same-sex marriage but has vowed to defend in court Arkansas’s state constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man, one woman. I will give kudos to this guy, who–unlike too many of his fellow Democrats these days–puts the law ahead of his own personal preferences, unless/until a court declares the law unconstitutional.
SOONER OR LATER, THEY’RE GOING TO COME FOR PEOPLE YOU DO LIKE:
This is going to happen: sooner or later, some CEO or sports team owner or similar is going to get ousted because he or she supports a woman’s right to an abortion, or the cause of Palestinian statehood, or opposes the death penalty. It’s inevitable. I can easily see someone suggesting that, say, Israel is an apartheid state, and watching as the media whips itself into a frenzy. And when that happens, the notion that there is no such thing as a violation of free speech that isn’t the government literally sending men with guns to arrest you will be just as powerful, and powerfully destructive, as it is now. So what will these people say? I don’t have the slightest idea how they will be able to defend the right of people to hold controversial, left-wing political ideas when they have come up with a thousand arguments for why the right to free expression doesn’t apply in any actual existing case. How will Isquith write a piece defending a CEO’s right to oppose Israeli apartheid? A sports owner’s right to do the same? I can’t see how he could– unless it really is just all about teams, and not about principle at all.
To follow up on Sarah’s link to this post earlier, the left’s PC round-up of the last few years will quickly be forgotten once there’s a Republican in the White House — and in any case, all attempts at ousting someone for his leftwing views are easily explained away by those 60 year old catch-all words: McCarthyism and Blacklisting.
Or as Canadian journalist and blogger Kathy Shaidle likes to say, what passes for “liberalism” these days boils down to: “it’s different when we do it.”
(See also: How easily history of the 1990s was tossed down the Memory Hole.)
AT AMAZON, Star Wars Men’s Tees Under $15.00.
FINELY-TUNED MULTICULTURAL SENSITIVITY IN ACTION:
¡Ay caramba! Imagine the cries of offensive ethnic stereotyping or worse if Fox News had observed Cinco de Mayo by having one of its yanqui persons of pallor staggering across the set in a sombrero while chugging from a pint bottle of tequila?
But it happened on MSNBC, so the PC police probably won’t make a peep. At today’s transition from Way Too Early to Morning Joe, there pranced producer Louis Burgdorf with his Halloween-store sombrero and pint bottle. WTE host Thomas Roberts encouraged Burgdorf “to drink the whole thing and eat the worm,” meaning either it was mezcal not tequila or Roberts just doesn’t know his south-of-the-border booze.
Video at link.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Wal-Mart Has a Lower Acceptance Rate Than Harvard.
I HOPE SO BUT I AM SKEPTICAL: Will new amendment to USA Freedom Act bar bulk data seizures?
I like the idea of a Congressional fix rather than relying on the courts, but I await the analysis of these amendments by those who know this statute well.
DIVIDED COURT NARROWLY UPHOLDS INVOCATION PRAYER AT TOWN MEETINGS: Amazing to me how close this was (5-4). Along strict conservative versus liberal lines. Don’t the liberals understand that there is no “separation of church and state” clause? All there is an Establishment Clause in the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .” How anyone could think an invocation prayer–delivered by officials representing various religions–could constitute an “establishment of religion” is just a hair shy of cray cray. Ya think maybe they’re just hostile to religion generally?
THE IRS SCANDAL, DAY 361: From Tax Prof.
SOUTHERN PRIMARIES IN MAY SET UP GOP FOR FALL BATTLES: The GOP’s chances at taking the Senate could hinge on this month’s votes, Rich Baehr writes at PJM.
EXERCISE NAKED IF YOU WISH: But maybe the middle of the street isn’t the best place for this?
BREAKING NEWS FROM 1941: “Odessa Jewish community mulls emergency evacuation.”
Hey, it’s not like we had a world lead naively promise us “Peace in our time” last year or anything…
Related: Moscow Expresses ‘Concern’ About Treatment of Ethnic Russians in Brighton Beach.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Your ♡bamaCare!!! Fail of the Day.
YOU PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF SMITH ELECTRIC. But the U.S. spawn of a failed British operation got $32 million under President Obama’s green energy program to build 510 electric vehicles, including some electric truck prototypes for the Army. I’m betting you can guess what comes next in this story? It’s another Washington Examiner Watchdog exclusive. Speaking of which, have you bookmarked the Watchdogs? Nothing else like them in the Right mediasphere.
VIDEO: BRIT HUME GRILLS FORMER DEM REP. JANE HARMAN over Benghazi denial.
Related: Sharyl Attkisson: There’s a ‘Well-Orchestrated Strategy to Controversialize’ Benghazi.
UPDATE: Boehner officially taps Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to lead select Benghazi committee.
“TODAY I AM ASHAMED. I AM ASHAMED I DIDN’T DO ENOUGH TO STOP THIS MADNESS:”
Students around the country are taking high-stakes Common Core-aligned standardized tests now and some teachers are expressing unhappiness about having to administer them. Some are refusing to administer them and others are going public with their concerns about the nature of the tests and the emphasis being placed on them by policymakers. Numerous problems have been reported with these tests in New York, including badly worded questions, unfair cut scores that determine who does well and who doesn’t, and booklets with blank pages. Entertainer Louis C.K. complained about the tests on Twitter and the David Letterman show.
The headline above, from a a Long Island elementary school teacher quoted in the Washington Post is actually a nice obit for the last six years.
THE CONSPIRACY THEORY capital of the world.
EPA GIVES YOUR TAX DOLLARS AWAY AS A “BONUS”: An Inspector General audit shows that the EPA gave about a half million dollars in unauthorized bonuses to about 11 lucky employees as “retention” awards. Some employees received the extra pay for years (again, unauthorized), even after being promoted. But hey, I’m sure this is just an isolated thing. I’m sure the rest of the federal government runs smoothly and efficiently.
VDH: DEMOCRATS BETTER OFF TO JOIN BENGHAZI PROBE: PJM’s Victor Davis Hanson is quoted by Boston Herald columnist Jack Encarnacao today:
“The call for a select committee is predicated on those recent memos, with more to come,” said Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution, referring to last week’s so-called smoking gun emails. “So if they were to boycott it, and if they have another one of these Ben Rhodes memos, they’d look really stupid right before the midterm elections. They’d be better off to go along with it and hope nothing else surfaces.”
Hanson said Dems will want to be able to shape questions for officials who come before the committee, particularly if more material emerges like a previously withheld email by White House speech writer Ben Rhodes that documents efforts to frame the terrorist attack as a response to an anti-Muslim video, and another previously classified email that indicated the attack was immediately identified as an Islamic extremist terrorist attack. The 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Read the whole thing.
WHY CAN’T THE REST OF THE LEFT SEE THIS: Sooner or later, they’re going to come for people you do like.
HE GETS IT: Great review by Matt Zwolinski of the new edition of my book, The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law:
When I first became a libertarian, I was strongly attracted to some version of natural rights theory. But critiques like those of David Friedman and G.A. Cohen caused me to question that commitment.
It was in the midst of this questioning that I first read The Structure of Liberty. I didn’t know it at the time, but one of Randy’s long-standing philosophical projects was the reconciliation of natural rights and consequentialist analyses. The Structure of Liberty represents the culmination of that research project, presenting a very useful analysis of natural rights as hypothetical imperatives, and integrating and extending Hayekian concerns about the use of knowledge with public choice concerns about the limitation of power into a novel, systematic libertarian theory.
ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE’S NO PUSHBACK FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: Putin’s Propaganda Wins: His Info Warfare Tactics Work. From John Fund at National Review.
SPEAKER BOEHNER’S “ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION” GETTING WORSE: Is there a little blue pill for this? If so, Boehner better start popping some quick. His tea party-backed primary opponent, J.D. Winteregg, is closing fast in the polls. I think if Boehner grew a pair, his dysfunction would recede without the need for pharmaceutical intervention.