Archive for 2017
January 30, 2017
HEY, IF YOU’RE SHOPPING FOR AMMO, consider my former law students’ online ammo business, LuckyGunner.com. Prices are good, service is great, and they’re good people.
“COMPASSION” IS RESERVED FOR THOSE WHO RELIABLY VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS: Cuban-American Congressman: Where was the outrage when Obama blocked Cubans? “Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., accused critics of President Trump’s immigration ban of hypocrisy, pointing out that few complained when former President Barack Obama ended the nation’s asylum program for Cubans just days before leaving office.”
ROD DREHER NOTES THAT leftist identity politics is creating a White Tribe. Well, identity politics encourages people to organize according to identity. It’s death on civil society but a source of great power for politicians. And since politicians care more about power than the fate of civil society. . . .
It’s the failure of the Bourne identity approach.
MARC THIESSEN: Trump Should Go Nuclear With His Supreme Court Nominee.
In 2013, Democrats broke a nearly four-decade-long precedent and changed Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch nominations and appointments to the federal circuit or district courts — allowing them to be confirmed by simple majority. Eliminating the filibuster for political appointments that die with a president’s term was one thing. But Democrats eliminated the filibuster for lifetime appointments to the federal bench as well. Once that line was crossed, Republicans can now rightly ask: Why stop at the district and circuit courts of appeal? If Democrats openly say they will obstruct anyone Trump chooses, why not follow the precedent they set and apply their rules to Supreme Court nominees?
The reason Democrats eliminated the filibuster for judicial appointments was to let Barack Obama stack the federal courts with liberal judges — particularly the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the nation’s second-highest court, which reviews many critical cases related to federal laws and regulations. And stack the courts Obama did. He appointed more than one-third of the federal judiciary and reversed the ideological balance of the 13 U.S. circuit courts of appeals. When he took office, 10 circuit courts had conservative majorities. Today, nine have liberal majorities, including the D.C. Circuit.
Going nuclear paid huge dividends for the left. One of the liberal judges Obama put on the D.C. Circuit on a party-line vote was Nina Pillard. She later authored the decision that upheld the Obamacare contraception mandate. . . .
Obama and Senate Democrats used the nuclear option to shift the ideological tilt of the nation’s second-highest court. And if Democrats had controlled the Senate last year, does anyone doubt they would have hesitated to use it to put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court over Republican objections? Of course they would have. And the next time they are back in the majority, they will not hesitate to use the nuclear option to overcome Republican opposition to a liberal nominee. It is only a matter of time before the nuclear option is invoked. The only question is whether it will be invoked by Republicans now, or by Democrats later.
So why wait?
Why, indeed? Once you’ve shattered traditions for opportunistic gain, they can’t be put back together again. Though, technically, the nuclear button here is in the hands of Mitch McConnell, not President Trump.
THAT WAS FAST: Trump fires acting AG for defying immigration ban, AP reports.
IS THIS THE KIND OF PROTEST OBAMA FINDS “HEARTENING?” A Black Lives Matter Protester: ‘We Need to Start Killing People.’
This pre-school teacher wants to violently overthrow our government and our economy, in the name of Black Lives Matter. What a great message to be giving to the next generation, let alone to share on the internet. She screamed, “F**k white supremacy, f**k the U.S. empire, f**k your imperialist a** lives. That s**t gotta go.” She also yelled, “We need to start killing people. First off, we need to start killing the White House. The White House must die. The White House, your f**king White House, your f**king Presidents, they must go!”
I remember when “eliminationist rhetoric” was considered bad by the left, instead of aspirational. More here.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE TO HIS LEFTY COLLEAGUES: I’m not stuck in here with you. You’re stuck in here with me.
OBAMA HOLDOVER: Acting Attorney General Orders Justice Dept. Not to Defend Refugee Ban. Imagine what people would say if a Republican holdover did this to a Democratic president. . . .
UPDATE: “You’re fired.” You knew that was coming, right? “The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States. This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.”
Well, if she seriously believed it was unconstitutional, she was right to decline to enforce it. And Trump was within his rights to replace her with someone who would. That’s how it works.
ANOTHER UPDATE: From the comments: “Hysterical Facebook friends and insane protestors continue to bolster my confidence that I voted correctly.”
AT AMAZON, Valentine’s Day Gifts for Her.
SO LEFTIES ARE GOING APESHIT OVER TRUMP, AND I WONDERED — WAS I DOING THE SAME THING OVER OBAMA 8 YEARS AGO? Archives say: Not so much. On the other hand, this item turned out to be sadly prescient where Obama’s foreign policy was concerned.
HEALTH: France Fights Obesity By Banning Unlimited Soda Refills
I was going to order a second glass of wine, anyway.
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21ST CENTURY DATING: I Wore Perfume Made From My Vagina to See If It Would Get Me Better Dates.
REMEMBERING ROOSEVELT’S VICTIM,FRED KOREMATSU:
Hillary had the kind of nuanced position that allowed you to think — if you liked her — that she’d have a big heart toward the suffering and simultaneously protect us from terrorists or — if you didn’t like her — that she had no plan and no nerve to stop the influx of masses people, some of whom hate the American system and want to kill us.
Not enough people liked her, the system we love made Donald Trump our President, and now he is shocking the people who didn’t like him by doing what he said in plain language he was going to do.
But many years ago, a President who is revered by the kind of people who like Hillary Clinton issued an Executive Order excluding all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. . . .
The Democratic Party’s all-time favorite President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, decided to take action against all persons of Japanese descent because “the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage.”
Fred Korematsu stayed where he was, in Oakland, California, where he was born. Soon enough, he got arrested.
Well, the Japanese Internment is now regarded as an awful episode in American history. But, you know, not in Democratic Party history.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Bigger’s Better? In Higher Ed’s Amenities Arms Race, Bigger’s Just Bigger!
Testifying before the U.S. Senate in 2013, University of Wisconsin professor Sara Goldrick-Rab described college campuses as “glorified summer camps.” She said administrators were “engaging in an arms race to have the most impressive bells and whistles.”
That depiction may at first seem hyperbolic, but even a cursory glance at many of today’s college campuses reveals that the “arms race” described by Goldrick-Rab is real. Lush new dormitories, recreation facilities, student activity centers, libraries, and lecture halls now dot the collegiate landscape, embodying the idea that students must be appeased with upper-middle class comforts if universities are to vie for their tuition dollars.
In this competition, however, there are no real “winners,” except perhaps for construction companies and architects being paid to make every amenity bigger, better, and more impressive than the next. Recruiters can use stylish buildings and new playspaces to lure prospective students, but unwary taxpayers, parents, and student borrowers pay the price.
And we all know where this ends.
IMAGINE IF GEORGE W. BUSH HAD SAID THIS ABOUT TEA PARTY PROTESTS AGAINST OBAMA IN 2009: Obama: I’m “heartened” by all of the public protest over Trump’s EO.
THESE ARE THE CRAZY YEARS: British Medical Association Warns Against Using “Expectant Mothers” For Pregnant Women As It May Offend Intersex Men. Instead we’re supposed to say “pregnant people,” so as to include intersex or transgender men.
HUH. I COULD’VE SWORN THEY WERE HITLER A UNTIL A FEW MINUTES AGO. BUT THEN, MITT ROMNEY USED TO BE HITLER, AND SO DID JOHN MCCAIN. HOW LONG UNTIL TRUMP ISN’T HITLER ANYMORE EITHER? WaPo: Hey, maybe the heroes of the “resistance” will be … the Koch brothers?
WHITE HOUSE SAYS IT’S AWARE OF IRAN’S LATEST MISSILE TEST: Well, as January 2017 ends the White House staff is rather different than the staff when the month began. Trump’s in, Obama’s out. Trump disdains Obama’s so-called “Iran nuclear weapons deal,” and well he should. Note that Vice-President Pence is meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah and the missile test is a likely topic. A White House spokesman said that the administration will comment officially on the missile test later.
Here’s the Fox News report the AFP story quoted.
Iran conducted its first ballistic missile test under Donald Trump’s presidency, in yet another apparent violation of a United Nations resolution, U.S. officials told Fox News on Monday.
The launch occurred Sunday at a well-known test site outside Semnan, about 140 miles east of Tehran, Fox News was first to learn.
The Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile flew 600 miles before exploding, in a failed test of a reentry vehicle, officials said. Iran defense minister Brigadier Gen. Hossein Dehqan said in September that Iran would start production of the missile.
…The launch also came a day before Jordan’s King Abdullah arrived in Washington for meetings with Vice President Pence and Defense Secretary Mattis.
As the story notes, the UN Security Council Resolution in question is UNSCR 2231.
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Using nothing but YouTube tutorials, woman built house from the ground up.
A LITTLE CATCHING UP: Here are two photos from StrategyPage’s Battle of the Bulge commemorative series that I either failed to link to or in one case the link was bad. Both are color pictures.
“Return to St. Vith”: An infantry unit in the 7th Armored Division returns to a devastated St. Vith, Belgium. The photo was taken January 23, 1945.
“A Mortar Position Near St. Vith”: This also dates from January 1945.
The series ended last week. Later this week I’ll link to one or two that I found compelling or poignant.
RELATED: I linked to this photo, but it shows another view of St. Vith after U.S. forces retook the town. This photo was also taken January 23, 1945. Lovely snow, tragic landscape.
LINK ISSUE: I put the link to the second photo in again and tested it. FWIW, that’s the photo that had a link problem last month. I linked to it a couple of days later along with a subsequent photo in the series.