CHARLIE MARTIN ASKS: What Is Trump’s Deal?

I SEE A LOT OF THIS SHARED BY MY LEFTY FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK: BBC Trending: The rise of left-wing, anti-Trump fake news.

One example of an incorrect story is the unflattering, digitally-manipulated image, which suggested that US President Donald Trump had diarrhoea during a recent golf outing. Another falsely suggested that President Trump profited from the US missile strikes in Syria

It’s hard to gather definitive data on the political bias in fake news stories, so the evidence for a rise in ‘liberal fake news’ is essentially anecdotal. But a recent study did effectively debunk the stereotype that fake news tends to be shared more by uneducated people or those with right-leaning politics, as compared to other groups. . . .

As for where the market for liberal fake news comes from, according to Claire Wardle, who is a research director at First Draft – a non-profit organisation which is looking for solutions around trust and truth in the digital age – the appetite stems from so-called confirmation bias.

“People like to share information that makes them feel good, ” she says.

“Many people on the left right now are feeling overwhelmed and fearful and unsure of what’s going to happen next. While they’re scrolling through their information feeds at speed on small mobile phones their critical functions are not kicking in, and they’re seeing information that makes them feel immediately connected with other people who think similarly to them. And without doing the usual checks that they would do, they’re sharing and very quickly passing on similarly false and problematic content that we were seeing before the election.”

Lots of lefty academics sharing stuff from OccupyDemocrats that has no basis in fact, or even plausibility.

Related: Facebook’s Fake News Is Looking More Liberal Every Day.

CHANGE: Haitians get word of Trump crackdown, slow flow to border by 97%.

DEMOCRATS’ WAR ON THE POOR: Walmart is the most efficient anti-poverty program in America, but Mayor Bill De Blasio won’t let them open a store in New York. He’d rather force the poor to pay higher prices than displease the food-workers’ union that helped elect him. My City Journal article notes that a majority of New Yorkers — including those in union households — want Walmart stores in the city, and that support for Walmart is especially strong among blacks and Hispanics.

The economist Richard Vedder and I defended the proposition, “Long live Walmart,” Walmart in a recent Intelligence Squared U.S. debate in New York. We expected to have a tough time convincing the liberal audience, but they ended up voting in favor of Walmart. Of course, the economic arguments for Walmart don’t carry the same weight at City Hall as union campaign contributions.

BUT I DON’T WANT TO: Forget About Terraforming Mars. Here’s Why.

“The rate of loss of gas today is very low — slow enough that it would take billions of years to remove the equivalent amount of gas that is in the atmosphere,” principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said in an email. There is some CO2 left in the polar ice and in carbon-bearing materials, he added, but not nearly enough to warm the temperature significantly if it somehow was put back in the atmosphere.

“There isn’t a source of CO2 that could replenish the atmosphere — even outgassing of CO2 from volcanoes has got to be incredibly slow today,” Jakosky added. “If we wanted to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise temperatures significantly, it would take something like 10 million kilometer-sized comets (if they were all made entirely of CO2). This is just not feasible.”

That is… inconvenient.

AN F-15 MESSAGE FOR KIM JONG UN: It’s a rather impressive USAF “reminder” photo taken at Kadena Air Base, Japan. The air wing is conducting an “elephant walk” — taxiing in close formation. The F-15s are fully armed. In a war time situation, aircraft on a strike operation would want to take off quickly and not waste time loitering. The photo reinforces the diplomatic message Rex Tillerson delivered in March: Strategic patience is over.

PAUL BEDARD: Trump’s Base Is Still Firm. “And even in Democratic Massachusetts, Trump’s base has stuck with him. The latest WBUR survey said that those who backed the president in the state won handily by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton remain ‘strong’ for the president. Said WBUR, ‘Red towns in Massachusetts continue to support Trump: 80-90 percent of voters agree that Trump will keep America safe, is a good negotiator, cares about people like you, will put the country’s interest ahead of his own, is honest and forthright, shares your values and is an ethical person.'”

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CHARLES MURRAY’S “PROVOCATIVE” TALK: Have you actually read it? It’s neither offensive nor extreme. To be fair, none of those people protesting The Bell Curve have read that, either.

A WARNING TO TRUMP: Foolish to Choose Morning Joe Crowd Over Bannon and Voters.

As I said before, dance with who brung ya.

QUESTION ASKED: What are the True Costs of New York’s ‘Free’ College Education?

I’m not sure it matters. Whenever costs are socialized and benefits are privatized, there is usually a constituency loud and engaged enough to keep a program going in perpetuity, regardless of the expense.

MY LATEST NEW YORK OBSERVER COLUMN: Barack Obama’s Syrian chemical weapons mess. Someone ought to remind Congressional investigators worried about Russian political interference that Obama embraced Vladimir Putin and gave the Kremlin a major role in U.S. Syrian policy vis a vis the use of chemical weapons.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Gene Nichol Criticizes ‘Nakedly Ideological’ Attack On UNC Center For Civil Rights, Calls Out ‘Cowardly’ Dean, Provost, And Chancellor. This will end well.

WELL, LET’S HOPE NOT: Trump Won’t Be Punked By Foreign Dirtbags Like Obama Was.

SCENES FROM RAHM EMANUEL’S CHICAGO: 29 people shot in less than 18 hours in Chicago.

SALENA ZITO: A Fragile Hope In Ford Heights.

Nobody ever really moves in here. Nobody ever comes here except to pass on by; you either escape or die.

The only businesses left in the town are one gas station, two liquor stores and a strip club; the strip club, a massive Greek-revival structure, is the largest employer.

Building after building is vacant, litter is everywhere. Businesses are shuttered, modest homes abandoned, and so are a couple of the housing projects.

The community’s connection with hope is fragile.

And the saddest thing is that none of this is new: Ford Heights, located 25 miles from Chicago, has been fighting this battle for decades. In 1987 it was named the poorest black suburb in America.

De-industrialization is color-blind; it doesn’t matter if your town is all white, or predominately black like Ford Heights — when the jobs leave, everyone bleeds red.

A study by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago showed, in 2014, that Ford Heights’ jobless rate exceeded 60 percent for 20- to 24-year-olds.

The evidence of prosperity passing by this rural black town is everywhere.

The problems are so numerous, so egregious to polite society’s sensibilities, that polite society just doesn’t come here. Like everything in culture, if you don’t hear about it or see it, walk the streets or step in the peoples’ shoes for a week or a day or even an hour, then it mustn’t really be happening.

Except it is.

Read the whole thing.

THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP: RIP Turkey, 1921 – 2017.

More than any other reform, the Law on Fundamental Organization represented a path from dynastic rule to the modern era. And it was this change that was at stake in Turkey’s referendum over the weekend. Much of the attention on Sunday’s vote was focused on the fact that it was a referendum on the power of the Turkish presidency and the polarizing politician who occupies that office, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yet it was actually much more.

Whether they understood it or not, when Turks voted “Yes”, they were registering their opposition to the Teşkilât-ı Esasîye Kanunu and the version of modernity that Ataturk imagined and represented. Though the opposition is still disputing the final vote tallies, the Turkish public seems to have given Erdogan and the AKP license to reorganize the Turkish state and in the process raze the values on which it was built. Even if they are demoralized in their defeat, Erdogan’s project will arouse significant resistance among the various “No” camps. The predictable result will be the continuation of the purge that has been going on since even before last July’s failed coup including more arrests and the additional delegitimization of Erdogan’s parliamentary opposition. All of this will further destabilize Turkish politics.

And:

Erdogan is an authoritarian, like those found throughout the world. But he is also inspired by Ottoman history, and there are aspects of his rule that echo that era. As the Turkish president has come to rely on a smaller and smaller group of advisors, including members of his family, his “White Palace” — the presidential palace in Ankara he built on land once owned by Ataturk — has come to resemble, not merely in grandeur, the palaces of the Ottoman sultans. Yet his effort to secure the executive presidency goes much deeper than that. Erdogan wants to tear down the republic because both he and the people he represents have suffered at the hands of those who have led and defended it. It would be impractical and impossible to re-create the governing structures of the Ottoman state, but in the Turkish-Islamist imagination, the age of the Ottomans was not only the apotheosis of Turkish culture and power, but a tolerant and progressive era. For Erdogan’s core constituency, in particular, the AKP era has been a golden era, a modern day analogue to this manufactured past. These predominantly pious and middle class Turks enjoy personal and political freedoms that they were once denied. They have also enjoyed upward economic and social mobility. By granting Erdogan the executive presidency he has so coveted, they are looking forward to even greater achievements.

We’ll see.

THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED, SEXUAL MINORITIES WOULD FACE POGROMS. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Drupal Contributors Threaten to Quit After a Developer is Banned for His Private Sex Life.

ALL OVER THE WORLD, PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY WITH THEIR POLITICAL CLASS: Protests sweeping South America show rising antigovernment anger.

CHANGE: On North Korean border, Pence tells CNN US will drop ‘failed policy’

To achieve this new strategy, the administration is relying heavily on China, a country President Donald Trump spent his entire campaign railing against, but has since stopped as it became clear North Korea would be a top priority requiring China’s help.

“I know the President was heartened by his discussions with President Xi (Jinping). We’ve seen China begin to take some actions to bring pressure on North Korea but there needs to be more,” Pence said.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a daily briefing Monday that the onus was on all parties — including the US and China — to reach a peaceful solution.

“Resolving this issue requires all relevant parties, especially parties that bear major responsibility and play a key role in this issue, to work in the same direction and make a joint effort,” he said.

The message isn’t that the U.S. is changing policy. The message is that the U.S. Vice President can go to the DMZ and announce that China is starting to come along with the new policy.

THE HILL: Base’s Trump-Hating Extremism Poses Problem For Democrats:

House Democrats face a recruiting dilemma in 2018 as the liberal backlash to President Trump looks poised to boost progressive candidates in primaries.

Democrats are seeing a groundswell of enthusiasm on the left, but that same energy could complicate the calculus in swing seats and districts carried by Trump that Democrats need to take back the House.

The party will likely need to strike a delicate balance between finding moderate candidates who best match the political profiles of the target districts on issues such as abortion and gun control without alienating its left wing.

“I think it may be helpful in some of the deep red districts or red-of-center districts to have some candidates who may be anti-abortion rights or pro-gun, maybe … more conservative side of some of these social issues,” said Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of campaign analysis site Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

Democrats need to flip two dozen seats to regain the House majority. To win that many seats, they’ll need to put many Trump districts into play. Some strategists argue that means recruiting candidates that both fit the district politically and come off as “authentic,” even if they’re viewed as more liberal.

It’s the old fake-moderate ploy. Hey, it worked in 2006.

JAMES TARANTO: How Trump Is Like Early Giuliani.

That worked out all right for New York City, as I recall.

STEVE HAYWARD: “Say what you will about the ‘red-diaper babies’ of the old left decades ago: at least they wore diapers. Today’s un-diapered left is dropping its s— everywhere.”

GOOD MORNING: Liz Sheld has your A.M. brief at Hot Mic.