RICHARD FERNANDEZ: “Why couldn’t the Obama era intelligence community detect Russian meddling?” “There are too many coincidences for it to be just bad luck. Some journalists are belatedly realizing they are living through the aftermath of the Big Bang. A huge strike happened without them even being aware of it and the scale of it is boggling. The Obama administration failed to detect the rise of the Islamic state, was surprised by the Russian invasion of Crimea and Putin’s intervention in Syria, did not see the rapid development of Kim’s nuclear arsenal and, publicly at least, ascribed the assault on the Benghazi consulate to a video — and as the New Yorker points out, were even blindsided by Russian election interference openly happening on Facebook.”
Archive for 2017
November 15, 2017
TOM COTTON: Immigration In The National Interest.
IT MIGHT HURT DEMOCRATS: MSNBC host has perfectly logical reason for not covering Menendez trial. Later, when it won’t cost them anything in terms of power, they’ll sadly announce that they should have done better, as they are now doing with Bill Clinton.
JAMES BOVARD: Do Trump’s liberal critics seem increasingly unhinged?
Many Democrats sound ready to rush to impeachment regardless of what Trump has actually done. They seem inspired by the Soviet secret police chief who allegedly declared: “Show me the man and I will show you the crime.” Desperate assertions that $3,000 in Russian-linked Facebook ads swung the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are indicative of the pathetic logic of many Trump critics.
Many Trump opponents are the same type of zealots who, in the late 1700s, proudly labeled themselves “Friends of Government.” In their eyes, Trump’s greatest sin is tarnishing the majesty of the presidency and the federal government. Trump is exposing the sham of a Leviathan Democracy which pretends that presidents will be philosopher kings — instead of merely talented vote catchers. However, Trump cannot be blamed for destroying Americans’ trust in Washington. This was already achieved by presidents such as George W. Bush and Obama who the media occasionally exalted to the skies.
Trump’s critics are correct that the president has too much arbitrary power. But many people happy to believe the worst about Trump will heave all their skepticism overboard when the next political savior is anointed. Such naivete is being encouraged at the highest levels of the Democratic Party. Recall that Hillary Clinton’s recent book declared that the lesson of George Orwell’s “1984” is that people should trust their leaders and the media.
Hysteria remains the 2017 political badge of honor. Last Wednesday, thousands of people gathered across the nation to shout at the sky to protest the anniversary of Trump’s victory. But righteous rage is no substitute for focusing on the real perils that Trump and any other president poses to our rights. The Friends of Freedom need to keep their intellectual ammo dry.
Among other kinds.
LINDA GREENHOUSE FREAKS OUT.
BECAUSE THEY SUCK? Why must the press emphasize “disenchantment, exhaustion, resentment, listlessness, terror, disorientation, suspicion, joylessness, and hate”? Willard Wirtz was the father of my former dean and colleague (now retired), Dick Wirtz.
OUR HIGHEST-IQ PRESIDENTS WERE PROBABLY HERBERT HOOVER AND JIMMY CARTER: Too much of a good thing: very smart executives are less able leaders.
TOO SOON? The Best Albums of the Obama Presidency.
THEY’RE DEMOCRATS, AREN’T THEY? Lindsey Graham wants names of lawmakers accused of harassment.
NEW JERSEY ATTORNEY IS GIVING FLORIDA MAN A RUN FOR HIS MONEY: DUI lawyer is busted for drugs after barging into stranger’s home in high heels, no pants:
Christodoro, who was disoriented after being awakened by police, said he didn’t know how he ended up in Lyndhurst and put on a pair of sweatpants he had inside his car, according to Valente. He was then arrested after officers found a plastic bag inside the car containing what police suspected was pure MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, police said.
Found via a co-blogger at Small Dead Animals, who sagely advises readers, “Kids, don’t do drugs.”
CHINESE DEMOCRACY: Has Xi Jinping Become “Emperor for Life”?
In the CCP, power rests with those who can put loyal cadres in high positions. During the recent congress Xi did just that. As expected, General Secretary Xi and Premier Li Keqiang remain in the PBSC, China’s highest ruling body. The five new inductees to the PBSC, all born in the 1950s, have sworn fealty to the “supreme commander.” Li Zhanshu, Xi’s confidant and hatchet man, will become Chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, next March. Party theorist Wang Huning is taking charge of the ideology and propaganda portfolio. Another loyalist, the out-going Director of the Organization Department, Zhao Leji, will head the Party’s top anti-corruption agency, the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI). Vice-Premier Wang Yang, regarded as an economic and financial reformer, will be named Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s highest advisory council. And the veteran Party chief of Shanghai, Han Zheng, is slated to be the next Executive Vice-Premier, the principal deputy to Premier Li.
The dominance of the inchoate Xi Jinping Faction (which consists of his underlings, cronies, and protégés when he worked in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces from 1985 to 2007, as well as his classmates at Tsinghua University and fellow natives of Shaanxi Province) is most pronounced in the larger 25-member Politburo. Fifteen of the Politburo members are Xi loyalists, plus cadres who have publicly sworn total allegiance to Xi.
China’s prosperity was made possible in part by the orderly transfer of power from one likeminded apparatchik to the next. Can Xi keep the prosperity, now that it seems that he’s broken the political model it was built on?
Stay tuned.
HIDDEN IN THE SENATE TAX BILL: Surprise Gifts for Breweries and Start-Ups.
The Senate amendment included apparent victories for the Brewers Association, including a temporary reduction in the excise taxes levied on beer. The “CRAFT beverage modernization” provision, introduced by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, would lower the tax rate on beer produced in the United States, particularly for small breweries. The amendment will lower the tax on beer to $16 per barrel on the first six million barrels brewed and lower it to $3.50 per barrel for small brewers on the first 60,000 barrels produced domestically.
They had me at beer.
EWA RYSZARD: Hey Millennials: Communism Sucks, I Lived It.
USAF FOR FAKE: Air Force Accepts Award For Combating Racist Incident That Was Totally Made Up.
To the best of my knowledge, Wag the Dog wasn’t intended as a how-to guide:
Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean: Well, if Kissinger can win the Peace Prize, I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up and find out I’d won the Preakness.
Stanley Motss: Well, yes but, our guy DID bring peace.
Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean: Yeah, but there wasn’t a war.
Stanley Motss: All the greater accomplishment.
To be fair, Albania definitely had it coming to them.
(Classical allusion in headline.)
THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE REMAINS ZERO: Amazon’s Cashierless Store Is Almost Ready for Prime Time.
Amazon is vague on the mechanics, but the store relies on a mobile app and some of the same sensing technology that powers self-driving cars to figure out who is buying what.
Employees have tried to fool the technology. One day, three enterprising Amazonians donned bright yellow Pikachu costumes and cruised around grabbing sandwiches, drinks and snacks. The algorithms nailed it, according to a person familiar with the situation, correctly identifying the employees and charging their Amazon accounts, even though they were obscured behind yellow polyester.
I’m curious to see one of these stores firsthand.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Breastfeeding May Not Protect Newborns Against Everything.
A FRIEND OF MINE HAS BEEN WORKING ON THIS PROJECT FOR A WHILE: The Secret to Long Life? It May Lurk in the DNA of the Oldest Among Us. “If unusual patterns in their three billion pairs of A’s, C’s, G’s and T’s — the nucleobases that make up all genomes — can be shown to have prolonged their lives and protected their health, the logic goes, it is conceivable that a drug or gene therapy could be devised to replicate the effects in the rest of us.”