Archive for 2017
November 7, 2017
IT’S COME TO THIS: ACLU defends article linking Taylor Swift to white supremacists.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University of Arkansas Admits That New Tenure Policy Is Designed To Muzzle Faculty.
AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, Updated Hourly.
Plus, new Kindle Daily Deals.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Hollywood, ESPN and other debacles: Why can’t our ruling class do its job? “Our elites care more about what their peers think of them than about what they’re supposed to be doing. No wonder so many institutions are failing.”
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Texas Shooting Update, Comey Changed His Story and Much, Much More.
BOLD: GOP planning run to make Elizabeth Warren, Bay State see red. “National Republicans are launching an unprecedented offensive into the deeply Democratic Bay State — installing a long-term Massachusetts presence meant to bolster GOP mid-term candidates and target President Trump foe and potential 2020 rival U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Herald has learned. Republican National Committee officials will soon name a Massachusetts state director and staffers to coordinate the 2018 congressional campaigns and remain through the 2020 presidential cycle — an unheard of commitment in a state often overlooked by GOP bigwigs.”
THIS SEEMS PREMATURE: What Saudi Arabia’s purge means for the Middle East.
At this early stage, it’s a bit like explaining “What Hitler’s destruction of the Red Army means for the New Europe” in August of 1941.
Maybe Prince Salman’s purge will help modernize the Kingdom, maybe he’ll end up against the wall himself. It’s just too soon to know, or to explain.
INEZ STEPMAN: Hey Marie Claire: Women are sick of your attacks on conservatives. “Why is the Left, and the feminist industry in particular, so threatened by conservative women that they need to make up elaborate stories to explain our existence? Well, for one, their ideology isn’t very popular among the women whose votes they feel so entitled to. Only one in three women identify as feminist, which makes Valenti’s feminism only slightly more popular than Congress and herpes.”
I WONDER IF THIS IS WHERE LISA BLOOM GOT THE SEXUAL-HISTORY DIRT SHE WAS SHOPPING AROUND? Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies.
Plus, some shady dealing involving superlawyer David Boies:
In some cases, the investigative effort was run through Weinstein’s lawyers, including David Boies, a celebrated attorney who represented Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential-election dispute and argued for marriage equality before the U.S. Supreme Court. Boies personally signed the contract directing Black Cube to attempt to uncover information that would stop the publication of a Times story about Weinstein’s abuses, while his firm was also representing the Times, including in a libel case.
Boies confirmed that his firm contracted with and paid two of the agencies and that investigators from one of them sent him reports, which were then passed on to Weinstein. He said that he did not select the firms or direct the investigators’ work. He also denied that the work regarding the Times story represented a conflict of interest.
If I were the Times I think I’d feel otherwise.
UPDATE: And in fact: “NYT statement to me just now: ‘Intolerable conduct, a grave betrayal… It is inexcusable, and we will be pursuing appropriate remedies.'”
BLACK MINISTERS MEET WITH JEFF SESSIONS TO TALK ABOUT INNER-CITY VIOLENCE, get protested by white “Black Lives Matter” protesters.
JEFF DUNETZ: The REAL Reason Donna Brazile Wrote Her Book.
Since her election loss Hillary Clinton has been a constant media presence trying to explain all the reasons lost the election (my latest count is 30 excuses). Along with her blame game, at times Ms. Clinton has hinted she might run again in 2020. By drawing the coverage, Hillary’s been squeezing out other Democrats from receiving coverage.
Enter Donna Brazile, whose book “Hacks” feeds the rumor her winning of the nomination wasn’t fair, claims that the campaign was incompetent, had racist and misogynistic elements, and was too arrogant in its belief they had the election won to listen to advice that they were in trouble.
If Hillary Clinton’s book is named, “What Happened,” Brazile’s book could have been titled “What Really Happened.” Donna Brazile is a long-time Democratic Party operative who twice served as interim chairman of the party. She wouldn’t have written a book bashing Hillary Clinton if she wasn’t trying to free the party from the grasp of the Clinton machine.
Eight years of Obama nearly destroyed the Democrats as a national party, and Clinton’s lousy campaign just about sealed the deal. I doubt Brazile’s book is 100% honest (ahem), but I don’t doubt it’s an honest attempt to save the party from the Clinton Kleptocracy and from the far-left Obama/Sanders Progressives. Instead, the Democratic Remnant is doubling down on the radical identity politics and associated culture wars which cost the party so much since 2009…
…and I can’t think of anything more except to pop some corn.
ANOTHER FAKE RACISM INCIDENT: Racist graffiti painted on car near K-State was a fraud. “Riley County Police reported Monday afternoon that the owner of the car, Dauntarius Williams, 21, of Manhattan, admitted to investigators he was responsible for the graffiti. Law enforcement officials, however, decided not to file charges against Williams.”
IT’S A TARGET-RICH ENVIRONMENT: 15 Of The Most Unhinged Responses To The Texas Church Massacre Yet.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Is Political Backing from Gun Industry ‘Worth the Blood’?
The government failed to enforce existing gun laws on the Texas shooter, who was stopped by instead a legally armed citizen.
AMERICA: The Heroes Of Sutherland Springs. “The response by the two by-standers who refused to stand by is something else entirely. It was a characteristically small-town American act of self-reliance that shows, no matter how tattered our civil society may be, it still produces people who will risk life and limb for others without hesitation, unbidden by anything other than their own sense of obligation.”
UH-OH: Tesla’s Director Of Battery Engineering Is Out.
Jon Wagner, who joined Tesla in 2013, worked as the team leader for battery pack design engineering at the automaker and helped develop technology in the Model S, X, and 3, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also served as Tesla’s interim director for battery manufacturing, body engineering and computer aided engineering, his LinkedIn page says.
Wagner couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. Tesla declined to comment.
Sources said he officially left the company within the past month, but the circumstances of his departure aren’t immediately clear. There are some hints on Wagner’s LinkedIn page, which says he still works at Tesla, but, as of last month, now states that he’s launching a battery and powertrain startup in Redwood, California.
“[C]ontact me to find out more,” Wagner writes on his page about the new venture, “now hiring!”
It’s possible Wagner’s new venture was in the works for some time, before the Gigafactory issues became known. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last week the company didn’t fully grasp the extent of the issues “until quite recently.”
That last line ought to be more worrisome than Wagner’s exit.
AL HUNT: Look for Republicans to Backtrack on Taxes.
Well, I certainly hope not. But one unintended consequence of the Democrats’ disarray is that it gives Republicans the impression that they can afford to keep sliding on their promises.
TAKE A BITE OUT OF THIS: Apple’s secret tax bolthole revealed.
As others (and myself) have written many times before, corporations don’t pay taxes — they collect them. Any taxes are actually paid by customers (higher prices), employees (lower wages), shareholders (smaller returns), etc. The ideal corporate tax rate is therefore zero, but politically that would never fly. Instead we have a tangled mess of corporate tax law, which benefits large corporations with their armies of lawyers and lobbyists. Small corporations which can’t afford all that are put at a competitive disadvantage, not to mention sole proprietorships which pay through the nose on everything.
But since we can’t get an ideal corporate tax rate, a flat and transparent corporate tax would be the next best thing. Our current system is the worst of all possible worlds: It diverts resources and manpower away from investment and innovation, and stifles entrepreneurs to the benefit of established interests.
On the other hand, our system creates endless possibilities for corruption and graft. So it has that going for it. Which is nice for Washington.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Trump Beats Back The Age Of Intolerance. “We are no longer in the late 1950s era of liberal reform. It is now a postmodern world of intolerance and lockstep orthodoxy. . . . Either Trump will restore economic growth, national security, the melting pot, legality, and individual liberty or he will fail and we will go the way of Europe. For now, there is no one else in the opposition standing in the way of radical progressivism.”