INSECURITY: “We’re being prodded to think of the numerosity of the GOP field of candidates as absurd. (How will they debate?) I keep seeing GOP-disparagers calling the group a ‘clown car.’ What’s really going on? I say it’s displacement of anxiety over the extreme opposite happening on the other side: only Hillary.”
Archive for 2015
May 21, 2015
POLITICO: Elizabeth Warren was paid up to $90,000 as witness in 2000 trade case. “The senator who wants to keep an investor dispute process out of the Pacific trade deal was an expert witness in the same kind of case 15 years ago.”
BECAUSE #WHITEPRIVILEGE!: Charles Blow at the New York Times continues his bloviating about the racial injustice of media coverage of the Waco biker gang violence versus that of the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson.
In Waco, the words used to describe the participants in a shootout so violent that a local police spokesman called the crime scene the bloodiest he had ever seen included “biker clubs,” “gangs” and “outlaw motorcycle gangs.” . . .President Obama and the mayor of Baltimore were quick to use the loaded label “thugs” for the violent rioters there. That the authorities have not used that word to describe the far worse violence in Waco makes the contrast all the more glaring.
The words “outlaw” and “biker” while pejorative to some, still evoke a certain romanticism in the American ethos. They conjure an image of individualism, adventure and virility. There’s an endless list of motorcycle gang movies. A search for “motorcycle romance” on Amazon yields thousands of options. Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug, even has a motorcycle commercial.
While “thug life” has also been glamorized in movies, music and books, its scope is limited and racialized. It is applied to — and even adopted by — black men. And the evocation is more “Menace II Society” than “Easy Rider.” The pejorative is unambiguous. . . .
Blow’s conclusion? It’s all just more evidence of pervasive racial hatred (as if he needs more evidence, as he sees it everywhere, all the time):
And while we can’t demand that the world love our flesh as we do, we can — and must! — demand that it stop pretending that its hatred of it is some cultural chimera concocted by a racial grievance industry. We can demand that the data around racial bias, which stretches across society, be accepted as fact rather than opinion.
We can demand the right to call hatred by its name and to its face. We can demand the right to exist, fully and freely, in the wholeness and beauty of our own humanity.
We must see the brilliant light in our beautiful darkness and love the brown bodies that the world would just as well mark and discard — even the “thugs.”
Or maybe, Charles, you could just stop assuming that every single thing in the world is racially motivated, and start acknowledging the “beauty” and “humanity” of whites and “love the [white] bodies,” even the bikers and rednecks and (gasp!) conservatives. We can demand the right to call your hatred by its name and to its face.
RELATED: C.W. Cooke disembowels this #whiteprivilege narrative:
All in all, there is a pretty simple answer to the question, “Why didn’t Americans rack their brains upon hearing the news that a motorcycle gang had shot up another motorcycle gang?” That answer: Because that’s what motorcycle gangs do.
VISION: Kids Who Can’t See Can’t Learn. The Insta-Daughter had vision problems when she was young, and they affected her schoolwork until we got them corrected. I’m still not 100% confident that it’s entirely fixed — her depth perception is poor — but I don’t know what else to do.
AT AMAZON, Father’s Day Deals in Camera, Photo & Video. Or just buy something nice for yourself.
Plus, Warehouse Deals on Drones. Well, this is the 21st Century, you know.
SO IN YESTERDAY’S POST ABOUT TRAINING WITH MARK RIPPETOE, I should have noted what a rockstar he is. I train in a big-box chain gym, not a “black iron” place, but people kept walking up and asking him “are you Mark Rippetoe?” Apparently, his very popular videos and highly-recognizable voice mean that he’s sure to be recognized.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Woman Realizes That She’s Been Accidentally Abusing Her Husband This Whole Time…
HERE’S MORE ON THAT anti-Stephanopoulos street art posted around ABC News HQ today.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Nice Ivy League Degree. Now if You Want a Job, Go to Code School: Pricey coding classes are attracting college grads who want better jobs. “Feng is among thousands of students, about 70 percent of whom already have college degrees, flocking to coding boot camps. Hers is run by a company called General Assembly that promises to transform ‘thinkers into creators,’ not to mention holders of well-paying jobs. It’s an especially attractive pitch for humanities and social sciences majors who didn’t learn the skills they need to compete for the plentiful jobs in the technology industry.”
Heh: “Thinkers into creators.” That’s some subversive stuff right there. All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
TEST DRIVE: The 2016 Honda Pilot.
AT AMAZON, deals galore in Training & Fitness.
And shop the Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals. When bad things happen, it’s good to have food.
Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. Just remember, when winter storms are over, spring and summer storms are on the way.
THE CRUMBLING TEFLON PRESIDENCY?: Jeffrey Toobin has a piece in The New Yorker today called “Obama’s Game of Chicken with the Supreme Court.” His thesis is that if the Supreme Court rules against the Obama Administration in the Obamacare subsidy case, King v. Burwell, the blame for the loss of subsidies of individuals living in States without State-operated health insurance exchanges will not fall on the Republicans’ shoulders, but the President’s:
If the Obama Administration loses in the Supreme Court, the political pain will fall almost exclusively on the President and his Party. To paraphrase Colin Powell and the Pottery Barn rule, President Obama will have broken health care, so he owns it. To the vast mass of Americans who follow politics casually or not at all, Obamacare and the American system of health care have become virtually synonymous. This may not be exactly right or fair, but it’s a reasonable perception on the part of most people. . . .If the Supreme Court rules against him, the President can blame the Justices or the Republicans or anyone he likes, and he may even be correct. But the buck will stop with him.
Toobin says this reluctantly, but at least he says it.
Toobin’s overall sentiment–that a ruling for the plaintiffs in King will be a political loss for President Obama (as it should be, since it was his decision to disregard the plain language of his own signature legislation)–is likely correct. But what’s even more noteworthy is that it evinces that the Teflon President’s non-stick coating is finally wearing a little thin with (at least some in) the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the criticism is mostly limited to foreign policy. Evidence of such Teflon thinning includes the Washington Post’s editorial board’s skepticism about the Iran nuclear deal (including his failure to respond to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s arguments before Congress), longtime Democratic pollster Pat Caddell’s recent statement that the Obama Administration is more corrupt than Nixon’s, Chris Matthews’ thrill dissipating to the point where he has called Obama “intellectually lazy,” Kirsten Powers’ criticism of Obama on the ISIS persecution of Christians, and Jon Stewart’s “je suis to be kidding me” quip about Obama’s failure to attend the unity rally in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo terrorism–something veteran liberal foreign affairs expert Leslie Gelb labeled a “horrendous gaffe” that “demonstrated beyond argument that the Obama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national security policy in the next two years.”
Of course there are many, many other liberals/progressives in the mainstream media who continue to stick their heads in the sand and dare not criticize the Great Leader on anything. But it is good to see that, for at least some of them, they are beginning to see that the Emperor has no clothes.
THERE ARE TOO MANY CRIMES ALREADY: EFF Asks Court To Reconsider Ruling That Would Make Violating Work Computer Policies A Criminal Act.
DON’T BELIEVE HIM: Obama seeks to boost ties with Jewish Americans amid Iran nuclear talks. Obama claims, “If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this.” Yeah, kind of like Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove.
THAT’S TOO BAD, AS I’D KIND OF LIKE ONE OF THESE: TrackingPoint in trouble—smart gun company stops orders, lays off staff.
NPR: How The New Deal Created Segregated Inner City Ghettos:
On how the New Deal’s Public Works Administration led to the creation of segregated ghettos
Its policy was that public housing could be used only to house people of the same race as the neighborhood in which it was located, but, in fact, most of the public housing that was built in the early years was built in integrated neighborhoods, which they razed and then built segregated public housing in those neighborhoods. So public housing created racial segregation where none existed before. That was one of the chief policies.
On the Federal Housing Administration’s overtly racist policies in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s
The second policy, which was probably even more effective in segregating metropolitan areas, was the Federal Housing Administration, which financed mass production builders of subdivisions starting in the ’30s and then going on to the ’40s and ’50s in which those mass production builders, places like Levittown [New York] for example, and Nassau County in New York and in every metropolitan area in the country, the Federal Housing Administration gave builders like Levitt concessionary loans through banks because they guaranteed loans at lower interest rates for banks that the developers could use to build these subdivisions on the condition that no homes in those subdivisions be sold to African-Americans.
Much more at the link. But hey, FDR was a great hero except for this. Well, and the concentration camps for Japanese-Americans.
NOTE: DO NOT TRY DYNAMITING IT. How to Bury a 42-Foot Rotting Humpback Whale. “It became a quality-of-life concern as far as the smell.” Do tell.
FASTER, PLEASE: Pill of Super-Protective “Heavy Fat” May Be Key To Longevity.
YEAH, PRETTY MUCH: Kyle Smith: Letterman’s Departure Was 15 Years Too Late. “Letterman was the barking dog who caught the car, was invited in, and curled up delightedly on the seat. He was the outsider who joined the very club on whose doorstep he used to leave a flaming sack of dog poop. He was the cool guy who became Mr. Big-Time Showbiz Personality. Letterman shouldn’t retire. He should just continue doing his shtick. In Vegas.”
HENRY MILLER: When Bureaucrats Battle Science. “This approach, which has been condemned repeatedly by the scientific community over many years, has discouraged innovation and provided incentives for the developers of new plant varieties to use inferior but unregulated techniques. This situation is inimical to the kind of innovation Thiel postulates is essential to the United States’ continued economic growth. Let’s not neglect the FDA, which, abetted by senior officials in the Obama White House, has been among the worst obstructers of technological progress.”
PUT IT OUT OF ITS MISERY: Justice Kennedy’s Affirmative Action Do-Over.
The opportunity comes in a petition the Court will take up Thursday to hear another challenge to the University of Texas’s sneaky use of race in admissions in flagrant disregard of Justice Kennedy’s 7-1 majority opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas. That 2013 ruling held that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals erred in accepting the school’s use of race and sent the case back to subject the preferences to “strict scrutiny.”
That means schools must use precise techniques to accomplish their goals, proving in particular that they could not get a diverse campus without favoritism based on race. That’s a challenge at the University of Texas, which guarantees admission to the top tier of graduates from each of the state’s public high schools. In 2004 this brought an freshman class that was 21.4% African-American and Hispanic without using race.
That didn’t deter UT, which came up with a new rationale for preferences—the need for “diversity within diversity.” That is, the school said it wasn’t admitting enough minority students from majority-white school districts. These tend to be the children of affluent minority parents who live in the suburbs. The Fifth Circuit ruled that this racial tactic is fine even under “strict scrutiny.”
Truth be told, progressives/universities consider “diversity” to be inextricable from their mission. Even if the Supreme Court boldly declared the obvious–that race-based discrimination in admissions is racial discrimination, and hence, per se a violation of equal protection–I have serious doubts that universities would stop the practice. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003):
The stain of generations of racial oppression is still visible in our society, and the determination to hasten its removal remains vital. One can reasonably anticipate, therefore, that colleges and universities will seek to maintain their minority enrollment–and the networks and opportunities thereby opened to minority graduates–whether or not they can do so in full candor through adoption of affirmative action plans of the kind here at issue. Without recourse to such plans, institutions of higher education may resort to camouflage. For example, schools may encourage applicants to write of their cultural traditions in the essays they submit, or to indicate whether English is their second language. Seeking to improve their chances for admission, applicants may highlight the minority group associations to which they belong, or the Hispanic surnames of their mothers or grandparents. In turn, teachers’ recommendations may emphasize who a student is as much as what he or she has accomplished. If honesty is the best policy, surely Michigan’s accurately described, fully disclosed College affirmative action program is preferable to achieving similar numbers through winks, nods, and disguises.
Translated: We have to let universities continue to employ overt race-based admissions criteria because otherwise, the progressives/liberals who run them will just “resort to camouflage” and “winks, nods, and disguises” and do it anyway. Not even a Supreme Court ruling telling them their behavior is unconstitutional will stop them, so don’t even bother. They won’t care. Yep.