MEET THE NEW PALACE GUARD, THE SAME AS THE OLD PALACE GUARD: GROSS: Colbert Launches ‘Late Show’ with Donald Trump on Screen With KKK (Video).
Archive for 2015
September 10, 2015
BACK WHEN OUR CONGRESSMAN CHAIRED THE CIVIL AVIATION SUBCOMMITTEE IN THE DAYS OF REGULATED AIRLINES, Knoxville had a suspiciously large number of convenient, mostly-empty flights. Now, though, that sort of thing is a scandal.
VETERAN PEOPLE’S FRONT OF JUDEA MEMBERS ANGRY OVER INFILTRATION FROM UPSTART JUDEAN PEOPLE’S FRONT WANKERS: Oregon is tired of all these immigrants from… California.
Shades of 2007, when the L.A. Times reported blue-on-blue in-fighting among sclerotic elderly first generation Haight-Ashbury hippies and the upstart next generation young hippies moving in and further ruining what remained of the neighborhood their spiritual grandfathers had originally trashed all those decades ago.
I SMELL A COVERUP. BUT THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW! Ashe Schow: We might not learn anything new from Rolling Stone lawsuits.
Rolling Stone magazine is seeking to limit what gets publicly disclosed during the ongoing defamation case brought forth by University of Virginia Associate Dean Nicole Eramo.
Eramo was the only named official blamed for improperly handling an accusation of a brutal gang rape by a student known as “Jackie.” The accusation was detailed in a now-discredited article that appeared in Rolling Stone. After the story fell apart, Eramo filed a defamation lawsuit against the magazine for its portrayal of her.
The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple noted late last week that even though a Columbia Journalism Review of the article revealed some additional details, there could still be more information out there — information that could be private (such as Jackie’s confidential report of the alleged gang rape). It doesn’t matter that she lied, what she said to Eramo could be protected information.
“The proposal would secure confidentiality for disclosures that fall into any one of several baskets, including information whose release is barred by statute, trade secrets or ‘commercially sensitive’ information, ‘unpublished newsgathering materials’ and ‘information of a personal or intimate nature regarding any individual,'” Wemple wrote.
Wemple, predictably yet amusingly, opposes the protection of “unpublished newsgathering materials.”
The big story here is one of malfeasance by the press. “Unpublished newsgathering materials” are highly relevant to the public’s ability to judge.
ANDREW McCARTHY: John Kerry’s Letter to Congress Is a ‘Guilty’ Plea to the Charge That Iran Deal Materially Supports Terrorism.
RELATED: Khamenei: No Israel in 25 Years.
Fortunately, the DNC-MSM is there to tell us where the real evil exists.
TWO MONTHS OF MISLABELING: ABC, NBC Evening News Shows Haven’t Called Bernie Sanders ‘Socialist’ Since July 3.
Because if they did, the networks might have to define the term, its history, and how his ideology impacts both Hillary and Obama, which could mean bad news for Democrats. And the networks are also reluctant to quote from Sanders’ fire and brimstone speeches, which are focused on how poorly the economy has been performing for the last six and a half years with a Democrat in the White House, as Glenn has noted in USA Today:
Sanders recently went after the Obama administration on inequality and unemployment, noting that although the official government unemployment is at 5.4%, the real unemployment figure, including those who have given up looking for work or who are involuntarily working part-time, is 10.5%, almost double.
What’s more, he notes, youth unemployment is even worse. For young high school graduates, unemployment is 33% for whites, 36% for Hispanics and 51% for blacks. Never mind that Sanders’ proposed minimum-wage increase would make that worse. The point is that he’s speaking to a concern that is evident to ordinary Democrats around the country, but that is concealed by the Obama administration’s gauzy proclamations of economic recovery.
All of which makes Bernie so problematic, as the kids like to say these days, to the MSM. But then, this is the media whose biggest names were proudly proclaiming “I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is” on the eve of the 2008 election, so don’t expect them to tell their viewers what Bernie’s worldview is anytime soon, either.
RELATED: Democrats seem to forget who ‘owns’ this sad economy.
Well, they’ll certainly want presidential voters to forget next year.
BECAUSE ISLAM THREATENS WESTERN CIVILIZATION, AND JUDAISM DOES NOT: Brendan O’Neill: Why does the left care more about Islamophobia than anti-Semitism?
In recent days, a Manchester teen was beaten up in a suspected anti-Semitic assault; a Jewish Spanish teenager was physically attacked; and two Holocaust survivors in Amsterdam were assaulted and called ‘dirty Jews’. Yet these incidents aren’t frontpage news; certainly they aren’t cited as evidence that a new plague of prejudice is stalking Europe, as is done when Muslims are assaulted. The message of this double standard, however implicit it might be, is pretty clear: attacks on Jews are less important than attacks on Muslims.
The extent to which chattering-class concern for Muslims trumps concern for Jews reached its nadir when four Jews were murdered in a Parisian deli shortly after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo. Pretty much every liberal newspaper in Europe continued thundering on about the potential for an ‘Islamophobic backlash’ following the Charlie killings, even as Jews were being killed. On the morning the four dead Jews were being put on a flight for burial in Israel, George Clooney was telling fawning hacks how worried he was about ‘anti-Muslim fervour’ in Europe. It’s surreal. Some people seem more worried about possible attacks on Muslims than by actual attacks on Jews.
Seem?
THE MIGRANT CONQUEST OF EUROPE: As Gilbert T. Sewall writes at the American Spectator, “this cannot end well:”
“The guilt trip from World War II, which one would think would gradually fade over time, seems to grow exponentially,” says an academic acquaintance who may understand the German soul as well as any living scholar. “The ultimate expiation will be to hand the whole country over to Muslims, lock, stock, and barrel.”
It seems appropriate here to recall Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall describing the Goths moving west into the Roman Empire at the end of the 4th century, “rendered desolate by the loss of their native country.”
The Barbarians still wore an angry and hostile aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the hope, that they would acquire the habits of industry and obedience; that their manners would be polished by time, education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman people.
Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the conquerors of the Roman Empire. Their rude and insolent behavior expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom they insulted with impunity.
Call Gibbon’s barbarians what you wish. We can invent many labels for those now in transit — perhaps the “other” or “deprived” will work — to please our modern sensibilities. We can hope for the best.
But notwithstanding specious arguments and sanguine expectations, Europe faces an existential alien threat. From Charles Martel to the Siege of Vienna, it has resisted invaders and would-be conquerers from Africa and the East. In 2015 it is doing the opposite.
Read the whole thing.
RELATED: “Trump: We have to accept Syrian refugees because they’re living in hell back home.”
SCOTT WALKER: WHAT WENT WRONG? “Walker is a conservative but not a fire-breather. That made his attempt to straddle the grassroots and the establishment — which would have been difficult for any politician — harder to pull off:”
Of course, it’s still early. The old baseball cliché that you are never as good as you seem when you’re winning and never as bad as you seem when you’re losing often applies to politics. And Walker, like all of the candidates this year, has been buffeted by an unexpected force. No one would have guessed that the candidate who talks of buying affordable shirts at Kohl’s and campaigns at Harley-Davidson outlets would get shoved aside in Iowa by a loudmouthed billionaire who brags about his incredible wealth and woos voters by taking their children for rides in his helicopter.
Oh I don’t know – look at the run that Newt Gingrich gave milquetoast Mitt Romney in 2011 simply by being an MSM-attacking fire-breather himself.
LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Reviving America’s Nuclear Culture.
At 8:15 a.m., most of downtown Hiroshima disappeared in a searing flash of light and a crushing blast of superheated air. At least 70,000 Japanese (including around 20,000 soldiers) were killed by the firestorm that incinerated the city’s wooden houses and buildings. Three days later, on August 9, the city of Nagasaki was similarly destroyed, this time with the immediate death of around 40,000 civilians. Tens of thousands more would die in coming weeks and years from burns and radiation sickness.
For 70 years since those August mornings, the world has been spared another nuclear bombing. Even as the United States and the Soviet Union built enormous stockpiles of nuclear warheads, reaching a maximum combined total of 64,500 in 1986, neither they nor the other official nuclear powers ever detonated a nuclear weapon during a conflict. Since the end of the Cold War, in particular, the threat of nuclear war has appeared to recede, and the massive nuclear arsenals relegated in importance to the backwaters of national strategy.
Today, though, a quarter-century after the fall of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons are back, proliferation is increasing, and the world faces a new and unsettling nuclear future. To prepare for the return of a nuclear world, the United States above all must revitalize its once-dominant nuclear culture, relearn the language of deterrence, and reincorporate nuclear strategy into all levels of security policymaking.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: The Huma Files: Feds investigated top Hillary Clinton aide for embezzlement.
Federal investigators formally investigated top Hillary Rodham Clinton aide Huma Abedin for the crime of embezzlement after confirming she took a “Babymoon” vacation and maternity time at the State Department without expending her formal leave, resulting in thousands of dollars of pay she wasn’t entitled to receive, The Washington Times has learned.
The probe also gathered evidence she filed time sheets charging the government for impermissible overtime and excessive hours after she converted from a full-time federal employee to a State Department contractor.
Those timecards were filed during a period that remains under investigation over questions about possible conflicts of interest, documents gathered by the State Department inspector general show.
Related: Anthony Weiner told to stay away from Hillary Clinton fundraiser. He and Huma are a real power couple.
TAKE BYRD DOWN: GET A KLANSMAN’S NAME OFF THIS COURTHOUSE!
It looks like you’re going to need a bigger petition, considering how many buildings in West Virginia the former “Exalted Cyclops” turned Democrat senator had his name plastered onto.
Let’s get back to Myers’ “just let the poor traumatized kids get the degrees they paid for” argument. No, don’t let them get those degrees. The whole point of those degrees is to signify their bearers possess qualities beyond merely the credit rating to take out vast amounts of student loans. The entire reason college degrees are supposed to be valuable is that they signify a capacity to absorb and process specialized knowledge beyond what non-degree-holders have. This is, in fact, the whole purpose of education generally.
This means if some troubled or weak students have allowed their mental illness to preclude them from absorbing such knowledge, the fault lies not with the college, but with them. Such people are as ineducable as an illiterate English major. The solution is not to expel knowledge from the classroom that is disagreeable to these feeble and fragile minds. It is to expel them. Their place is in a psych ward, not a school, and their money (or, more likely, their parents’) is better spent seeking treatment there than spoiling education for everyone else.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the stigma attached to mental illness exists at least partially because “sufferers” exhibit these sorts of cognitive glass jaws. Why should you be willing to spend time around someone prone to breaking down and blaming you at any moment, let alone take responsibility for them as an employer, supervisor, or especially the sort of educator-cum-substitute-parent that many college administrations try to be? In our lawsuit-happy culture, there is no reason for any rational being to want anyone who is mentally ill nearby if their most visible “advocates” are so fragile they want to see a Shakespeare play labeled like a pack of cigarettes. . . .
It’s not fair to the colleges or to them to expect them to hack it any more than it’s fair to expect someone with easily broken bones to become a body builder. Either the college will have to dumb its educational mission down to the point of meaninglessness, or the extremely damaged will have to put themselves at risk of interminable mental agony. The first option destroys learning; the second destroys people. Better to keep the people incapable of learning away from it.
Read the whole thing.
UNEXPECTEDLY: This Deal (Still) Keeps Getting Worse All the Time.
WAIT, WHAT: Al Qaeda Mag, Occupy Mag… at this point what difference does it make? Al Qaeda Mag Urges Attack on Koch Brothers, Buffett, Bloomberg
I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WORRYING ABOUT THE SILLY: Men of Honor vs Victim Culture.
GEEZE, YA CAN’T TRUST ANYBODY THESE DAYS: Al-Qaeda leader criticizes Islamic State for dividing jihadist ranks.
SPEAKING OF SILLY, ABOUT TIME SOMEONE SAID THIS: Expel People Who Demand Trigger Warnings.
BEYOND BAD OPTICS: CA Votes for Suicide During Suicide Prevention Week.
THIS REALLY IS GETTING SILLY: #BlackLivesMatter Activists Are Angry at Fear the Walking Dead, but They’re Angry at the Wrong Thing
DAVE FREER’S: Stardogs $3.99
WE USED TO HAVE A CONSTITUTION FOR THAT: Why Americans are so fond of the queen.
A SINGLE CONSTANT: Hillary Clinton, faux hawk: The only thing that never changes is her ambition.
THIS IS GETTING SILLY: New Korean Hulk could begin to smash issues over Marvel’s creative diversity. If they really need all these people by the names, can’t they CREATE new heroes?