YES. NEXT QUESTION? Does U.S. Media Help Russia Destabilize The United States?
Archive for 2017
October 12, 2017
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Tax Cut, Weinstein, Vegas and Much, Much More.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Trump wages war on the First Amendment.
—Headline, Salon, yesterday.
—Headline and subhead, Salon, January 18, 2014.
—Headline and subhead, Salon, July 8, 2014.
And don’t get 2014 Salon started on what it wanted to do to the indie film circuit.
Amazing how Trump has Democrats rediscovering the glories of the first amendment, huh? To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, depend upon it, sir, when a Democrat knows he is to have a Republican administration for at least the next four years, it concentrates his mind wonderfully on the concept of federalism and limiting the power of government.
IT HAS FOR A LONG TIME: Kurdistan Deserves U.S. Support. Here Is Why.
Francis Rooney:
Asserting that an independent Kurdistan would impede efforts to defeat radical Islam depreciates the Kurds’ current contributions to that very cause and seems to excessively defer to the Iraqi government. A strong and independent Kurdistan might actually strengthen our efforts by reinforcing the role of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force, as a full-fledged participant in the coalition opposing the Islamic State.
In a similar vein, the Kurds might help reconcile Islam with 21st Century values. Contrary to what we see throughout much of the Middle East, Kurds have promoted a secular brand of Islam in which church is separated from state and many different religions flourish. Drawing Muslims into a tolerant and secular interpretation of the Koran is a critical element in reducing radicalization and Islam-inspired violence. Pope Benedict XVI launched this argument in his well-known address at Regensburg in 2006, where he stressed the need for a modern construction of Islam that can peacefully and tolerantly co-exist with the rest of the world.
Furthermore, an independent Kurdistan would establish another countering force to Iran’s quest for hegemony in the Middle East. An independent Kurdistan securely aligned with the United States would undermine, or at least influence, the Shiite nexus Iran has created among Hezbollah, the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad’s Syria.
More than that, even a rump Kurdistan carved out of just northern Iraq (and perhaps also northeastern Syria) would be a thorn in Recep Erdogan’s side and a potentially existential threat to the Mullah’s regime in Iran.
SHOCKER: PEOPLE WITH SOCIAL SKILLS DO BETTER IN BUSINESS. The Fraternity Paradox: Lower GPA, Higher Incomes: Party more, study less and still do better than other male graduates in the work force.
SIGNS LIBERALISM’S SLOW SUICIDE IS FINALLY COMPLETE:
The old “liberals” wanted to dispense with individual rights so they could pursue the fantasy of setting themselves up as benevolent, all-seeing planners who would protect us from harm and order our lives to achieve the “greatest good for the greatest number.” But they wanted to do this while still thinking of themselves as the good guys, as fighters against oppression, as defenders of liberty. That is the pretense being torn down today in the suicide of liberalism.
Read the whole thing.
Related: Yes, the Democratic Party’s Polarization Helps Explain Trump’s Rise: “Clearly, ours is a polarized age, with tribal consolidation happening at a breakneck pace.”
Or as John Podhoretz tweeted in January, as quoted in Glenn’s recent post on “How Ta-Nehisi Coates Gives Whiteness Power,” “Liberals spent 40 years disaggregating [the] U.S., until finally the largest cohort in the country chose to vote as though it were an ethnic group.”
Unexpectedly.
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: Project Veritas Releases Second New York Times Video.
JOURNALISM ADVICE: A Harvey Weinstein Story Tip. “Dear journalists, here’s the link to Harvey Weinstein’s IMDB page. For every entry, there are potential questions you could be asking. The man has 331 production credits, 79 credits where he plays himself, and 34 movies which offered screen thanks to the man. For example, Piers Morgan used HW as a guest host multiple times over the course of four years. Did he behave himself?” More at the link.
SOMEHOW I MISSED THIS EXCELLENT WSJ PIECE ABOUT USING ANTI-KLAN LAWS TO SHUT DOWN ANTIFA:
Administrators often “coddle” and “encourage” censorship, Mr. Sessions observed. That’s nothing new. After the Civil War, white students at what is now Washington and Lee University in Virginia attacked blacks associated with the Freedmen’s Bureau. The college president, Robert E. Lee, offered pieties and looked the other way. In response to similar incidents, Congress safeguarded civil rights with legislation known as anti-Ku Klux Klan acts.
Public universities are subject to the full sweep of the anti-KKK laws, as well as more recent civil-rights statutes. At San Francisco State University, Jewish students have filed suit under Section 1983 of the federal civil-rights law, alleging disruption of their events violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The First Amendment requires public universities to treat speech neutrally, regardless of the message. Administrators may not tell police to stand down in the face of a “heckler’s veto.”
In 2013 at New York’s University at Buffalo, police let counterprotesters shut down a pro-life demonstration. This June the university settled, paying the plaintiffs’ attorney fees and promising to refrain from viewpoint discrimination in the future.
But universities are responsible only for taking reasonable precautions. A target of last semester’s antispeech riots, Bret Weinstein, was mobbed and hounded out of Evergreen State College after refusing to comply with a college-sponsored “Day of Absence” in which white people were “asked” to stay off campus. While Mr. Weinstein claimed that Evergreen State violated his right of free speech, the college could have argued that it acted reasonably because violent antispeech protests were still novel and Mr. Weinstein was physically threatened in class only once. He and his wife, also an Evergreen professor, settled their claim for $500,000 and an agreement to resign. Public universities now have notice of their duty to provide security, which UC Berkeley and the University of Utah just fulfilled for conservative writer Ben Shapiro.
Private universities have no First Amendment obligation to provide a forum for speech. But many riots purport to attack white “supremacy” or “privilege,” and if private universities act with deliberate indifference to racially motivated attacks, they may be liable to students or speakers. Colleges are subject to antidiscrimination statutes such as Section 1981, an anti-KKK act that would cover student and speaker contract rights. If they accept federal funding—and all but a handful do—they are also subject to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Institutions are not the only prospective defendants. Campus rioters themselves may be liable under Section 1985(3), which covers private conspiracies and targets those who, like masked Antifa attackers, go in disguise—“a common tactic also used by the detestable Ku Klux Klan,” as Mr. Sessions noted. The statute applies most clearly to racially motivated physical attacks or efforts to exclude persons. Evergreen State is a classic case: After disrupting Mr. Weinstein’s class, students detained the college president and apparently posted photos of themselves brandishing baseball bats on Facebook . Some faculty members demanded disciplinary action against Mr. Weinstein and later assembled with masked Antifa members who attacked counterprotesters.
Section 1985(3) may also apply to racially motivated “no-platforming”—group intimidation to suppress speakers.
There’s also a criminal statute, 18 USC 241, covering conspiracies to deprive people of their civil rights. And I think the financial backers and coordinators of these groups are legally vulnerable too.
October 11, 2017
HOW TOP NBC EXECUTIVES QUASHED THE BOMBSHELL HARVEY WEINSTEIN STORY:
NBC had initially been reticent about reporting on other news outlets’ stories on Weinstein as well. Last Thursday, when The New York Times first broke the story of Weinstein’s long history of alleged sexual abuse, both CBS and ABC carried the Weinstein story on their evening broadcasts. But NBC was conspicuously absent among its competitors and didn’t air a Weinstein piece that evening on “NBC Nightly News,” despite having had seven hours to put together a story (the Times article was published at 11 a.m. EDT).
Some NBC sources said that the broadcast was jam-packed with breaking news, including reporting on the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting and the NBC News report that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called President Donald Trump a “moron.” But the broadcast also had room for a segment on NFL player Cam Newton’s sexist remarks to a female reporter and a segment about Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees.
Two sources familiar with the production told HuffPost that Oppenheim made the final decision not to include a Weinstein story in the broadcast, telling staff that Weinstein wasn’t a nationally recognizable figure. That weekend, when “Saturday Night Live” executive producer Lorne Michaels was criticized for not including any Weinstein jokes, he told The Daily Mail that “it’s a New York thing,” suggesting something similar. NBC insiders have told HuffPost that this has led some employees to wonder if this was an internal talking point that NBC executives were using to justify the lack of coverage.
Weinstein produced Pulp Fiction and most or all of Quentin Tarantino’s other movies, Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, at least one Lord of the Rings movie, the Spy Kids franchise, multiple Woody Allen movies, Shakespeare in Love, Good Will Hunting, and the Project Runway TV series, in addition to about 320(!) other titles for both the movies and TV according to IMDB. He was a major contributor to the Clinton and Obama campaigns. There’s no way the public would be interested in knowing that somebody this powerful was accused of sexually assaulting or harassing Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, Heather Graham, Rosanna Arquette, and numerous other actresses. No story there that the public would be interested in.
According to the HuffPost:
By July, Farrow was ready with a bombshell story about Weinstein that included on-camera interviews with accusers and interviews with four female and male former Miramax and Weinstein Co. executives…One of the people Farrow had interviewed on camera for the story was veteran media reporter Ken Auletta. Earlier in his career, Auletta had tried to break the story of Weinstein’s predations. According to two sources familiar with the interview, and as reported in slightly different form by the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove, Auletta, after having reviewed Farrow’s reporting, said on camera something along the lines of, “If NBC News sits on this evidence Ronan has, it is a black eye for the organization and a huge scandal.”
Perhaps it’s less of a scandal for those of us who’ve long known it’s business as usual for the DNC-MSM.
In addition to the politics, there are also all those NBC drama and variety producers who might want a film or TV project with Weinstein. Don’t want to cut that gravy train off either, sexual assaults be damned.
UPDATE: “Awkward: Lauer Congrats Farrow for Weinstein Bombshell He Worked on ‘For NBC News.’”
The one that, according to the HuffPo, NBC brass eventually told Farrow that “he didn’t have enough reporting done to go to air but that he should also stop reporting on Weinstein’s story, putting him in an untenable position,” and thus his going to the New Yorker first. “Throw in the CNN Money story published by Brian Stelter and you have NBC with yet another scandal involving questionable news judgement (e.g. GM trucks, George Zimmerman 9/11 call, Brian Williams to name a few others),” Curtis Houck writes at NewsBusters. But as with Lorne Michaels, company man Lauer knows who signs his checks.
NOW OUT FROM STEVE STIRLING: The Sea Peoples (A Novel of the Change).
REALLY WORTH A READ: AUSTIN BAY: Donald Trump’s Threats Corner North Korea.
ROBERT SAMUELSON: Yes, Build The Wall.
First, I think it would reduce — though not eliminate — illegal immigration. It would be harder to cross the border; some wouldn’t try. Controlling our border is vital, even if, as the Pew Research Center estimates, there is now some net migration back to Mexico. This could change, and the gross flows in both directions remain large.
Second, the wall would symbolize a major shift in U.S. immigration policy — a tougher attitude — that would deter some from crossing the border illegally and, more important, justify legislation requiring employers to verify workers’ immigration status before being hired. If we were to increase border security but not require proof of legal status, much of the wall’s benefit would be lost. Workers would still come.
Finally, the wall is required as a political act of good faith to immigration opponents. They believe the wall would be effective, and the only way to prove — or disprove — these claims would be to try it. I know and respect many critics of the wall who believe it would be a waste of time and money. They could be right, and I could be wrong, but the only way to find out is to build it.
In the WaPo.
I REMEMBER WHEN THAT WAS AN IMPORTANT PRESSING ISSUE, BEFORE EVERYONE FORGOT ABOUT IT AND FOCUSED ON HARVEY’S FERN: The NRA’s Position on Bump Fire Stocks was Genius.
THIS DOESN’T SURPRISE ME: Ibuprofen better than morphine for kids after minor surgery.
I DON’T LIKE COD THAT MUCH: Here’s What Happened When Some Dude Ate Like The Rock For A Month.
TONI AIRAKSINEN: Elite College Students Say America ‘Not Worth Being Proud Of.’
Glenn likes to say we have the worst political class in history — because they’re trained to be.
IF YOU DON’T MOVE YOUR HEAD MUCH, MOST PEOPLE DO FINE IN ZERO-G: Elon Musk wants to fly people from LA to New York in 25 minutes in a giant spaceship — but it could be a ‘vomit comet.’ And the NASA Vomit Comet subjects people to grav transitions repeatedly, which is the real problem.
VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY ON CAMPUS? Professors Jonathan Haidt, Mark Lilla, Nadine Strossen, Sam Abrams, and April Kelly-Woessner tackle the question. (VIDEO)
IT’S COME TO THIS: Jerry Jones’ legacy on the line by putting Cowboys at epicenter of ugly partisan divide, says the Dallas Morning News.
Sure it will. In Texas, particularly. Tom Landry and Tex Schramm required their players to stand for the national anthem for 30 years without doing much harm to their reputations. But then, that was an era when football took priority over the political story of the day in both the NFL and among newspaper sportswriters.
Flashback: Dallas Morning News endorses Hillary Clinton, backing first Democrat in 76 years.