THE LAST VCRs EVER will be made this month.
Archive for 2016
July 21, 2016
NERO FIDDLES, TWITTER BURNS: “When Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos, a tech editor for the conservative news website Breitbart.com who used the Twitter handle @Nero, Yiannopoulos reacted with characteristic modesty,” Debra J. Saunders writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, hometown paper for the northern terminus of Silicon Valley. “He told the New York Times the ban launched ‘the beginning of the end for Twitter.’ Oddly, Yiannopoulos may be right.”
Read the whole thing.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What is the ‘ab crack’ and is it really achievable?
CRUZ TELLS TEXAS DELEGATES: I won’t be a “servile puppy dog” to a man who attacked my wife and father.
Related: Ted’s Calculation.
IN THE MAIL: From Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Alliance of Equals.
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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1169.
CLAIRE BERLINSKI & ALI KINCAL ON TURKEY: Dark Days Ahead.
President Erdoğan immediately asked the United States to extradite Gülen. Then began the purge. As many as 9,000 have so far been detained and 60,000 dismissed from their jobs. Many have been casually accused of being the top plotters. Serious news channels and publications have been more careful, but pro-government news organs have shown little regard for the principle of presumption of innocence. From the beginning of the coup attempt, the former commander of the Turkish Air Force, Akın Öztürk, was portrayed in the media as the leader. Yet in his testimony to the prosecutor, the general denied that he was in any way involved: He claimed the Chief of the General Staff, the head of the intelligence service, and many others as witnesses of his innocence. His testimony is internally consistent, at least. The former Chief of Staff, Necdet Özel, said, “Akın Öztürk did not raise any suspicions. If he had such an intention [the coup], why did he not do it when he was the Commander of the Air Force?” . . .
But it is not over. Two horrible truths have been revealed. First, it is now beyond doubt that the military has long possessed a faction that is both homicidal and suicidal, men in uniforms with access to heavy arms and a willingness to turn them on their fellow citizens. They have posed a grave threat to an unwitting Turkish public, and it is not clear that the threat has been nullified. It is moreover obvious now that the AKP has a street force, with a demonstrated willingness to kill, and both the ability and the willingness to commandeer the mosques to serve its own partisan purposes: Throughout the night, the mosques summoned people to the streets with the sound of the Sela—not the ezan. And while the coup plot was interrupted, the purge in action could be every bit as horrible as the purge had the plot succeeded. It is certain to ensnare the innocent.
How will this affect Turks’ view of the military? Until now, the military has been widely loved, held sacred, and regarded as a source of stability. A SONAR poll last April showed that the Turkish Armed Forces were the most trusted institution in the country (84.2 percent) and the government the least trusted (49.5 percent). Turks send their sons to military service with celebrations. Now that the rebels with uniforms have rained fire on them from above with F-16s and helicopters, and run them over with tanks, will their view change? It’s an unprecedented trauma, and it will surely have wide ramifications. The military’s identity is not easy to disambiguate from the nation’s. With real and growing threats to the nation in the form of the PKK and ISIS, Turks need their armed forces more than ever. Even the AKP, long at odds with the military, seems to have understood the people’s view of the Armed Forces and its significance. Two days ago, Prime Minister Yıldırım said, “I am saying this once again: This incident cannot be attributed to our military and our military’s chain of command. This is the work of a group within the military. Because our military is called the Prophet’s hearth. Our military, on the one hand, is dealing with these [putschists], on the other hand it is struggling in the Southeast. We should never ever not allow any incident that could diminish their morale.”
It’s easy to say, but hard to enforce. Trust in the military has been shattered, and will not easily be repaired.
I think Erdogan’s happy with that, as dictators don’t like rival power centers of any kind.
THE SCORE IS PENCE 1, CRUZ Ø, ROGER SIMON SAYS, SURVEYING THE CHESSBOARD FOR 2020
FROM THE EARTH TO TRAPPIST-1C: 2 ‘Nearby’ Exoplanets Confirmed to Be Rocky — and May Be Habitable.
Judging from the size and temperatures of the three planets around TRAPPIST-1, researchers previously suggested that regions on each world could be habitable — that is, have surfaces with just the right temperatures to harbor liquid water, a key ingredient of life as it is known on Earth. However, it was uncertain if these three planets were rocky worlds like Earth.
Now, TRAPPIST-1’s discoverers have found that the star’s two innermost worlds, TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c, are indeed primarily rocky planets.
The scientists made this new discovery by pointing NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope at TRAPPIST-1 to catch a rare event on May 4: a double transit, when two planets — in this case, TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c — pass in front of their star at nearly the same time.
The story also reports that “nearby” is still about 39 lightyears from Earth.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Union Skims Off 3% of Medicaid Benefits as Political Slush Fund.
MICHAEL BARONE: A quick historical look at opposing your own party’s candidate. In the course of the essay he reminds everyone that Jimmy Carter was once a segregationist. It’s something of an incidental comment, but The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and segregation.
AS BRITAIN SWELTERS IN JULY HEAT, a debate on whether it’s okay to sunbathe in your underwear. I’d say that depends on you, and on your underwear.
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JAMES KIRCHICK IN THE L.A. TIMES: If Trump wins, a coup isn’t impossible here in the US.
Douglas MacArthur, call your office!
THE MSM THAT DIDN’T BARK: One Of Hillary Clinton’s DNC Delegates Literally Tried To Murder Someone, But Media Are Silent.
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: “Fewer People Are Starting Their Own Businesses,” Money, sister publication to Time, who anointed Obama the next FDR in November of 2008 notes.
In other words — c’mon, say it with me! — “Unexpectedly.”
NO, BECAUSE THE BOYCOTTERS ARE ANTI-SEMITES AND ERDOGAN IS A MUSLIM: Will anti-Israel academic boycotters now also boycott Turkish universities? But it’s always nice to underscore their hypocrisy.
IT’S CLEAR THAT “ABSOLUTE MORAL AUTHORITY” IS A ONE-WAY STREET:
When Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the Benghazi attack, gave a moving and heartbreaking speech at the Republican National Convention, the liberal media jumped to attack her. I’m not talking about criticism or the suggestion that her solutions for what happened shouldn’t be enacted; I’m talking about personal attacks.
Smith, who is still obviously grieving over the loss of her child, blamed Hillary Clinton for it. Clinton was the secretary of state at the time and appeared to make conflicting statements about what caused the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
“For all of this loss, for all of this grief, for all of the cynicism the tragedy in Benghazi has wrought upon America, I blame Hillary Clinton,” Smith said Monday night. “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son.”
MSNBC said her “gross accusation” against Clinton “ruined” the night. A GQ writer tweeted: “I don’t care how many children Pat Smith lost I would like to beat her to death.” He has since deleted the tweet. Still others, like Salon and the Guardian, claimed the GOP was “exploiting” her pain to score points.
But as Jim Geraghty at National Review pointed out, this accusation of exploitation (and the harsh words directed at Smith) only come from the media when Republicans are involved. Geraghty mentioned how Democrats and the media weren’t lodging similar claims when Cindy Sheehan traveled to President George W. Bush’s home in Texas to protest the war, nor when Mitt Romney was blamed for causing cancer.
These attacks also don’t come from the Left or the media when the grieving parents are calling for gun control or for cops to be arrested (things media often endorse).
Think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines (and no consciences) and you won’t be far wrong.
STACY McCAIN ON THE DEMOCRATS WITH BYLINES “REPORTING” FROM THE GOP CONVENTION.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: How did Elizabeth Warren earn $44,000 from Travelers Insurance? “By helping Travelers Insurance limit its liability exposure from asbestos lawsuits.”