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Archive for 2016
February 13, 2016
MSNBC’S ANDREA MITCHELL WHINES ABOUT CRUZ CAMPAIGN AD: “Note Mitchell’s crocodile tears on behalf of Cruz, worrying that the ad might not play well in the Bible Belt: chutzpah in action. ‘A new level of lack of civility’? I know Mitchell is old enough to remember this exercise in Democrat civility,” Michael Walsh writes. Read the whole thing.
Related: From 2012, MSNBC’s Harris-Perry, Sharpton Make Excuses for Atrocious 2000 NAACP Ad Blaming GW Bush for James Byrd’s Death.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Last-Minute Valentine’s Day Gifts Dads Can Give to Moms.
LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT LIGHTBRINGER: If The CIA Apologizes For Lying About Torture, But Doesn’t Tell Anyone About The Apology, Does It Really Count?
FUNNY, BUT THE INSTA-WIFE LOOKS NOTHING LIKE HER MOTHER: Proof every woman turns into her mother.
SPYING: Apple: Dear judge, please tell us if gov’t can compel us to unlock an iPhone; Lawyers: Federal prosecutors told us they will continue to invoke 18th-century law. “If Feng’s phone had iOS 8 or later installed—as 90 percent of iPhones do—this entire issue would likely be moot. Apple now enables full encryption by default, and the company specifically said the move happened ‘so it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.'”
CAN’T WE JUST FOG EVERYTHING WITH DDT? Prepare for ‘Guerrilla Warfare’ With Zika-Carrying Mosquitoes, Experts Warn.
NOW CAN WE HAVE SOMETHING AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL? Scott Walker signs civil service overhaul.
Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation Friday overhauling the state’s century-old system of merit hiring and firing, gaining the first legislative priority he set after calling off his presidential bid last year.
Inking the legislation at the offices of ManpowerGroup, Walker said the rewrite of the state’s civil service law would help the state keep the best possible employees and ensure that the state remains “efficient, effective and ultimately accountable to the people of Wisconsin.”
“This is really about bringing Wisconsin into the 21st century when it comes to recruitment and retention,” the Republican governor said.
Walker said the state needed to learn from the private sector hiring practices of companies like Manpower, a global human resources giant, and update its policies for hiring, overseeing and firing the 30,000 state workers affected by the changes.
Walker said the state is keeping its principles of hiring according to merit rather than politics, but is updating a system that had become too slow and inefficient.
It’s time to face up to the reality that the 19th Century notion of an apolitical professional civil service is dead. What we have now is a politicized monoculture in support of one party and one agenda.
FALLEN ANGELS WAS JUST A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? GUYS? The silent sun: Eerie image revealed as solar activity remains the quietest it has been in more than a century – and some claims it could even trigger a mini ice age.
FASTER, PLEASE: Supercapacitor On-a-Chip Now One Step Closer.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Amidst 32% Enrollment Decline, University Of Minnesota Funds $16 Million Law School Operating Deficit.
Wow. Plus: “Wippman recalled a sense of optimism as he started the job eight years ago amid robust enrollment and a seemingly thriving economy. ‘I thought, “What could possibly go wrong?”’ he told the regents. ‘I don’t ask this question anymore.'”
CHARLES MURRAY NAILS “TRUMPISM” – Buzz is growing about this superb analysis of the Trump phenomenon. But there are a couple of key factors Murray fails to develop sufficiently and a sad implication of his analysis that those of us who had roles in the Reagan Revolution have been lamenting for a long time:
First, most Americans still profess some level of belief in (mostly Protestant) Christianity, but only about a third make their faith a living factor in their understanding of public policy and voting patterns. This is why Trump gives lip service to “religion” but nobody has any reason whatsover to fear that he would establish a theocracy (unless perhaps he would be the object of its worship).
Second, Trump’s impatience with criticism and quick resort to personal insult are a fertile breeding ground for an American Napoleon promising order and “greatness” in return for authoritarian power that functions within a merely ceremonial constitutional structure.
Finally, if Murray is right, it’s time to admit that Reagan was the high-water mark of the conservative movement, which in the decades since has watched in growing frustration as the GOP leadership has, for the most part, talked about it endlessly but utterly failed to deliver on the unfinished balance of his principled agenda.
Thoughts?
IN THE MAIL: Edited by Mark Steyn, A Disgrace to the Profession.
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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1010.
LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Predators on the Frontier: America’s rivals are probing U.S. defenses across the globe.
Revisionist powers are on the move. From eastern Ukraine and the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea, large rivals of the United States are modernizing their military forces, grabbing strategic real estate, and threatening vulnerable U.S. allies. Their goal is not just to assert hegemony over their neighborhoods but to rearrange the global security order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War.
We first wrote about these emerging dynamics in 2010, and then in TAI in 2011. We argued three things. First, that revisionist powers were using a strategy of “probing”: a combination of assertive diplomacy and small but bold military actions to test the outer reaches of American power and in particular the resilience of frontier allies. Second, we argued that the small, exposed allies who were the targets of these probes were likely to respond by developing back-up options to U.S. security guarantees, whether through military self-help or accommodation. And third, we argued that that China and Russia were learning from one another’s probes in their respective regions, and that allies themselves were drawing conclusions about U.S. deterrence in their own neighborhood from how America handled similarly situated allies elsewhere.
Five years later, as we argue in a new book released this month, these dynamics have intensified dramatically. Revisionist powers are indeed probing the United States, but their methods have become bolder, more violent—and successful. Allies have grown more alert to this pressure, amid the steady whittling away of neighboring buffer zones, and have begun to pursue an array of self-help schemes ranging from arms build-ups to flirtations with the nearby revisionist power. It has become harder for the United States to isolate security crises to one region: Russia’s land-grabs in Eastern Europe provide both a model and distraction effect for China to accelerate its maritime claims in the South China Sea; Poland’s quest for U.S. strategic reassurance unnerves and spurs allies in the Persian Gulf and Western Pacific.
Well, when America is run by people who don’t believe in America, this is to be expected. It will not end well.
IT’S COME TO THIS: Rape accusers sue University of Tennessee for giving accused students due process. I think that’s something to be proud of, though this should all be handled by police, not university bureaucrats anyway.
HECKUVA JOB, ROGER GOODELL. Exclusive: Beyoncé’s Super Bowl poster boy for Black Lives Matter was ‘high on drugs’ then stabbed me and threatened to keep doing it — before he was gunned down by cops, reveals victim.
You went full radical chic at the Super Bowl, NFL. Never go full radical chic.
ALTERNATE HEADLINE: SANDERS CAMPAIGN INVESTIGATED FOR ILLEGAL CONTRIBUTIONS!!!
Nah. You only get that treatment if you’re Dinesh D’Souza, and a Republican campaign.
THE ESTABLISHMENT WANTS TO PAINT HIM AS THE CANDIDATE OF LOSERS, BUT INSTEAD HE’S THE CANDIDATE OF PEOPLE WHO LOOK AT THE NEWS AND SAY “WHAT THE HELL?” The Unexpected Breadth of Donald Trump’s Appeal: In New Hampshire, he won working class men without college diplomas—and most every other demographic group.
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IT’S TIME FOR THE NRA TO CUT TED NUGENT LOOSE.
The Nuge went full Mel Gibson. Pro tip: Never go full Mel Gibson.
CENSORSHIP, UNITED AIRLINES STYLE, as spotted by Steve Hayward of Power Line:
VDARE is unquestionably controversial, and perhaps nativist, but by no means should it be classified as a “Militancy/Hate and Extremist” website. Seriously—a site that runs a review of a university press-published biography is blocked? I wonder what other right-of-center websites are blocked by United?
Well, since Steve asked, in late October, Mark Steyn tweeted, “Hey, United. I’m on your plane right now using your WiFi, which bans my website: http://www.steynonline.com Why?”
Adjust your travel plans accordingly.