Archive for 2016
September 23, 2016
MAN SHOT IN CHARLOTTE PROTESTS DIES. “Police said Carr was shot in a civilian-on-civilian incident Wednesday night, during protests that led to at least 44 arrests. Mayor Jennifer Roberts instituted a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew Thursday.”
WHEN YOU REPLACE CULTURE WITH POLITICS BOTH TURN SOUR, Ben Domenech writes at the Federalist:
Yesterday I linked Ross Douthat’s column on what he describes as Samantha Bee-ism – the problem of a universal and exclusionary liberal tone among late night comics like Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, and Bee herself. Douthat was absolutely over the target in his piece, which led to a serious of escalating self-beclownings among the defenders of the idea that this brand of politicized humor is a good thing – Bee reportedly criticized the column in a conference call, and I’m sure Douthat will be the subject of an Oliver rant soon enough, where he literally destroys people by yelling into a black glass eye for 30 minutes to the seal-like cheers of an audience of people who think exactly as he does.
But it’s impossible for any fair-minded evaluator to deny Douthat’s main point: replacing culture with politics, even late night culture, makes for bad versions of both. Late night comedy has gotten so off the rails of putting comedy first that when one of their fellow liberally minded hosts, Jimmy Fallon, has a softball interview (the only kinds he does) with Donald Trump, it’s viewed as a traitorous act, “normalizing” bigotry by just playing nice with it. And their irritation makes sense: It bothers these late-nighters very much not just that Trump has a shot, but that the brand of humor they and their predecessors used to skewer past nominees just isn’t landing this time around.
As Glenn has noted, “Every four years the GOP nominee is literally Hitler, only to be resurrected as one of the ‘good Republicans’ later in contrast to the new guy who’s literally Hitler.” How many times can the left cry wolf?
Related: Everyone Hush: Conan O’Brien’s Pet Fool [Andy Richter] is Going to Weigh In on Media Bias.
YOU DON’T SAY: Fewer see 2016 election coverage as fair.
The decline is largely due to Democrats’ dissatisfaction. “It comes predominantly from Democrats’ unease of how the media is covering the candidates,” Jeffrey Gottfried, senior researcher at Pew, said in an interview.
The percentage of Americans who characterized the media’s coverage of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, as “too easy” totaled 27%. That is higher than 20% for 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and 15% for John McCain, the Republican standard bearer in 2008.
More than four out of 10 Democrats, 43%, say the media is too easy on Trump. Only 27% of them said the same about Romney in 2012.
Meanwhile, 61% of Republicans said the media is too easy on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, relatively unchanged from four years ago, when 59% of them said the same about President Obama.
If the media were fair with Clinton, she’d be hiding in Argentina by now.
2016: Americans Already Hate The Next President.
A majority of Americans have a negative view of Hillary Clinton. And that’s according to a poll that has her leading Donald Trump by seven points.
It’s true that every four years journalists write columns lamenting the pitiful choices facing Americans on Election Day. But this election is special because of how overwhelmingly negative public views are toward the two major party candidates.
At Amazon, those wishing to wear their frustration now have three pages of products to choose from emblazoned with the logo, “I Already Hate Our Next President.” This sentiment can be shared on mugs, T-shirts, tank tops, hoodies and even infant onesies. But one need not rely on anecdotal evidence.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll cited above, just 37 percent of respondents said they had a positive view of Clinton, compared with 52 percent who had a negative view — and that was actually a marginal improvement over the August poll. Meanwhile, Trump was only viewed positively by 28 percent, compared with 61 percent who viewed him negatively. Among undecided voters, just 13 percent had a positive view of Clinton and 5 percent of Trump.
Even their own voters don’t like them much. A system that produces nominees like this is dysfunctional. But will anybody do anything?
THIS DOESN’T LOOK GOOD: Charlotte police refuse to release shooting video.
Other officers at the scene were wearing body cameras at the time, though the officer who shot Scott — Brentley Vinson, who was placed on paid administrative leave — was not wearing any recording device.
Kerr Putney, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief, said that video footage of the encounter did not give “absolute definitive visual evidence that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun,” but he said that the footage and other evidence “supports what we’ve heard” about what happened.
Putney later told CNN that the video was not from an angle that would show a gun in Scott’s hand, but he said witnesses saw a gun and one was found nearby. However, he said the department has no imminent plans to let the public view this footage and make a determination.
Conclusive or not, it’s probably past time to let the public see the video.
JAYVEE: Islamic State launches chemical attack against U.S., Iraqi forces, Pentagon confirms.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee “mustard blister agent” was released in the vicinity of a military airfield in the western part of al Qayyara, about 40 miles south of Mosul, in northern Iraq.
The airbase has been designated by Iraqi and American commanders as the main logistics hub to support a series of firebases that will serve as jumping-off points for 14 Iraqi Army brigades and thousands of peshmerga and militia fightersfor the eventual siege of Mosul.
If ISIS had been dealt with seriously three years ago, they wouldn’t be holding dress rehearsals with chemical weapons today.
LOYALTY: Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin defends daughter after tough EpiPen grilling.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) delivered a robust defense of his daughter, Mylan Pharmaceuticals CEO Heather Bresch, one day after House lawmakers rebuked her for the recent price increases of her company’s EpiPen allergy medication.
“We can criticize and beat the living crap out of anyone we want to, and that was proven yesterday. But does that solve the problem? Do they really want to solve the problem?” Manchin told CNN in his first public remarks about the EpiPen controversy, which has involved both his wife and daughter.
Bresch sat through about five hours of combative questioning by House members from both parties on Wednesday about her company’s decision to raise the price of its EpiPens, as well as her $19 million salary.
Manchin has so far stayed quiet about the issue that’s gripping Capitol Hill. But he weighed in Thursday to say the House panel could have been “more constructive” and said his colleagues weren’t trying hard enough to address the larger problem of rising medical costs.
He’s a loyal dad.
OOPS: Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years.
Several weeks ago, Facebook disclosed in a post on its “Advertiser Help Center” that its metric for the average time users spent watching videos was artificially inflated because it was only factoring in video views of more than three seconds. The company said it was introducing a new metric to fix the problem.
Some ad agency executives who were also informed by Facebook about the change started digging deeper, prompting Facebook to give them a more detailed account, one of the people familiar with the situation said.
Ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the earlier counting method likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by between 60% and 80%, according to a late August letter Publicis Media sent to clients that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
This isn’t just a big deal for advertisers on Facebook-hosted videos, but also for video producers. Metrics like how long users watch and exactly when they stop watching help producers figure out the best ways of creating content which actually keeps people watching.
Business Insider’s Lara O’Reilly argues that Facebook’s flub isn’t “as bad as it seems,” but as one of those content creators, I’d have to strongly disagree.
CRAZY LIKE A FOX: South Korea reveals it has a plan to assassinate Kim Jong Un.
South Korea has elite troops on standby ready to assassinate Kim Jong Un if the country feels threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons, the country’s defense minister revealed this week.
Asked in parliament Wednesday if there was a special forces unit already assembled that could eliminate North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, Han Min-koo said: “Yes, we do have such a plan.”
It seems unlikely that Seoul could actually pull off such a thing, given Kim’s secrecy, paranoia, and the level of protection he enjoys. Two weeks ago, South Korea announced a similarly unlikely plan to raze Pyongyang from the air. Perhaps the South is trying to provoke Kim into doing something stupid enough that the cabinet or the army instigates a coup against him.
THE HILL: Trump: Police wrongdoing needs to be ‘vigorously addressed.’
Donald Trump called for wrongdoing on the part of police officers to be “vigorously addressed” following this week’s shootings of unarmed black men in North Carolina and Oklahoma.
“The problem is not that there are too many police. The problem is that there are not enough police,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania Thursday.
“We must do everything to ensure they’re properly trained and they respect all members of the public and that any wrongdoing is always vigorously addressed.”
In Charlotte, N.C., the death of Keith Lamont Scott and the refusal of the city’s police department to release a video of the incident has sparked two nights of violent protests.
As of Thursday morning, nine people have been injured and 44 arrested during the riots, Reuters reports.
And in Tulsa, Okla., the officer who fatally shot Terence Crutcher was charged with first-degree manslaughter Thursday.
Trump said communities should work with and not against their police departments.
“The main victims of these violent demonstrations are law abiding African-Americans who live in these communities and only want to raise their children in safety and peace and with a good education,” Trump said.
Well, that’s certainly true.
SO MY USA TODAY COLUMN is suspended for a month. My statement is here. I don’t apologize for saying that you shouldn’t stop for angry mobs, even if they’re blocking your way. But I could have said it better.
September 22, 2016
FALL FASCISM PREVIEW: September is “Trump Is Hitler Month” At The Washington Post.
Hasn’t every month at the Post been “Trump is Hitler Month” for quite some time now?
(Classical allusion in headline.)
AN AR-STYLE RIFLE in .300 Win Mag.
AIN’T NO CRIME: Scotland to celebrate illegal whisky heritage.
The Cabrach Trust is earmarking £5.3m in fundraising in order to help transform the Inverharroch Farm into a heritage site and ensure that enthusiasts are well aware of the areas place in the Scotch whisky story.
Cabrach, which lies on the southern edge of Moray, is said to be one of the birthplaces of Scotch whisky as we know it, though traditionally, it is better known for its number of illicit distilleries and smuggling routes of the past.
The forbidden fruit theory holds that scotch might taste better when it’s illegal, but I’m not willing to risk it.
CARS ARE TOO GOOD: “As cars have gotten faster, it has become harder to distinguish them through raw performance statistics. Straight-line metrics such as acceleration and even top-speed numbers are losing their relevance in a world where top sports cars routinely hit 60 mph in three seconds and many can do 200 mph.”
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HOME INVASIONS IN HIDALGO COUNTY, TEXAS: Hidalgo County is on the Texas-Mexico border– across the Rio Grande from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Yes, home invasions by armed thieves occur throughout the US. However, the attacks described in this article mimic similar attacks in nearby northern Mexico that are associated with drug cartel turf wars. Over the last two years I’ve read several reports of home invasions by gangs in Texas. In at least one of them the attackers struck a house holding a large shipment of drugs. This December 2015 attack is similar to the one I recall. Note this comment in the December 2015 article:
Along the Texas border, the term “home invasions” is not used to describe common burglaries. The term is used to describe teams of gunmen that storm homes they believe are being used as stash houses to hide drugs, bulk cash or illegal aliens.
Here is another attack that occurred in May 2015. The attackers thought they were hitting a stash house. They were wrong,
The home invasions described in the September 21, 2016 Breitbart article appear to be very violent robberies, not attempts to steal drugs per se. But who knows. The article mentions a robbery by gunmen traveling in a SUV. This type of attack occurs far too frequently along highways in the northern Mexican states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas. Here is an earlier report on the home invasions by a TV station in the Rio Grande Valley.
JUST REGISTER IT TO HILLARY AND AN EXEMPTION WILL APPEAR AS IF BY MAGIC: Even Ford GT Prototypes Aren’t Exempt From Traffic Laws.
THIS WAS A KEY TENET OF FEMINISM, BEFORE THE BLUE-HAIRED SCOLDS TOOK OVER: Women’s Right to Say YES to Sexuality.
CHARLOTTE UPDATE: At Least Four Officers Injured, One Protester on Life Support.
AND THE ALMOST-OBLIGATORY NARRATIVE FAIL: Police Find PCP in Terence Crutcher’s Car.
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THIS ISN’T EXACTLY REASSURING: It’s ‘tradition’ in Russia to tamper with elections says top US intelligence chief.