JUST THINK OF HER AS A DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE WITH A BYLINE, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE. Andrew Klavan: Maggie Haberman is shocked — shocked — to find that Hillary Clinton’s people are dishonest.
Position yourself on your nearest fainting couch and read the whole thing.
AND IT’S NOT EVEN MAKING MONEY. How Twitter Killed The First Amendment. Nuke Twitter from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
But, you know, angry fascist mobs (they call themselves “antifascist,” as Orwell’s propaganda ministry called itself the Ministry of Truth) seem like a bigger threat to free speech, and authorities aren’t even using existing legal tools to shut them down.
IN THE MAIL: Edited by Roger Kimball, Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism.
Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY, MEDIA EDITION: The ‘Sh*tty Men in Media’ List Has Officially Been Weaponized.
The “shitty media men” list wasn’t made to be a bludgeon. When the anonymous, crowdsourced Google spreadsheet was first created earlier this month to collect anonymous reports of alleged sexual abusers, harassers, and general creeps in the New York City media and publishing sphere, it was presented, and understood by its creators, more as a shield than as a weapon — a tool to help women to protect themselves from men they should avoid. It was highly and admittedly unreliable — “take everything with a grain of salt,” it said at the top, and “if you see a man you’re friends with, don’t freak out” — but it was also private, meant to be shared quietly and directly between women the way whispered warnings always have been.
This model, of course, didn’t work for very long. For about 24 hours, the list circulated as it was intended to, among a fairly small number of women. Then it was taken offline, though screenshots, and a re-created read-only version floated around the internet in the days that followed. That iteration of the list was also taken offline; now, an Excel spreadsheet that appears to be a reproduction of the original Google document is floating around the web. This time, though, the list is no longer even theoretically a tool for helping women. It’s now being leaked and distributed not to protect women from predators but to publicly attack the men on it. The list has been weaponized for the online culture wars, and the women who created it, contributed to it, and were intended as its readers left totally powerless and voiceless as it’s used to undermine the industry in which they work.
You’d think that savvy media women would have foreseen this likelihood.
THE ANSWER IS NO, BUT THEY CAN’T SAY THAT: The Virginia Governor’s Race Has Exposed A Big Immigration Problem For Democrats: By making immigration an issue, Republican Ed Gillespie is challenging Democrat Ralph Northam to answer for his party: do Democrats believe in borders?
Lately, Gillespie has eased off talking about MS-13 and focused more on the economy, but by bringing illegal immigration into the race he’s managed to capitalize on what Trump exposed last year: Democrats, even centrist ones like Northam, don’t really believe in immigration enforcement anymore. To the extent that’s a message even a decidedly non-Trumpian Republican like Gillespie can leverage, it’s not just an immediate problem for Northam but a national problem for the Democratic Party.
Democrats might denounce it as racist, but the importance of the immigration question can’t be emphasized enough. Last week, Andrew Sullivan wrote, “The most powerful thing Trump said in the campaign, I’d argue, was: ‘If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country.’ And the Democrats had no answer, something that millions of Americans immediately saw. They still formally favor enforcement of immigration laws, but rhetorically, they keep signaling the opposite.”
That immigration would feature so prominently in a race between two relative centrists underscores the extent to which America’s two major political parties are cracking up. This week’s announcement by Sen. Jeff Flake that he won’t seek reelection confirmed that the GOP is increasingly the party of Trump, with all that implies about immigration. On the Democratic side, Northam’s candidacy seems thoroughly out of step with the Sanders wing of his party. Sanders made headlines recently with his unrealistic “Medicare for all” bill, which a growing number of Democratic senators have felt obliged to endorse because it’s really a litmus test of their progressive bona fides. Like health care and abortion, immigration is one of the issues increasingly defining the parties.
It also helps explain why a race that shouldn’t be close is tightening.
Well, stay tuned.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Universities abandon core curriculums, offer ‘thin and patchy education,’ survey finds.
AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases, Updated Hourly.
Plus, new Kindle Daily Deals.
WELL, HOW ABOUT THAT? Obama’s Campaign Paid $972,000 To Law Firm That Secretly Paid Fusion GPS In 2016. “Former president Barack Obama’s official campaign organization has directed nearly a million dollars to the same law firm that funneled money to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Steele dossier. Since April of 2016, Obama For America (OFA) has paid over $972,000 to Perkins Coie, records filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show. The Washington Post reported last week that Perkins Coie, an international law firm, was directed by both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to retain Fusion GPS in April of 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump.”
If the parties were reversed, Perkins Coie would be radioactive now. People would be targeting their clients to drop them, students protesting their recruiting presence at law schools, complaints to nonprofits with Perkins partners on the board: The full Koch treatment.
MICHAEL BARONE: Both parties trying even harder to defeat themselves. “The only thing preventing both parties from defeating themselves is the fact that elections are a zero-sum game in which one side must win.”
Well, we have the worst political class in our history, so. . . .
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: CNN’s Undisclosed Ties To Fusion GPS. “At no point in Perez’s reporting did he disclose his close ties to the Fusion GPS operatives.”. . . . CNN’s coverage of the dossier has been relatively soft. CNN anchor Jake Tapper, usually known for his aggressive coverage, gave Fusion a pass while reporting on the story Wednesday evening.” (Bumped).
LUCIA MARTINEZ VALDIVIA: Professors like me can’t stay silent about this extremist moment on campuses.
No one should have to pass someone else’s ideological purity test to be allowed to speak. University life — along with civic life — dies without the free exchange of ideas.
In the face of intimidation, educators must speak up, not shut down. Ours is a position of unique responsibility: We teach people not what to think, but how to think.
Realizing and accepting this has made me — an eminently replaceable, untenured, gay, mixed-race woman with PTSD — realize that no matter the precariousness of my situation, I have a responsibility to model the appreciation of difference and care of thought I try to foster in my students.
If I, like so many colleagues nationwide, am afraid to say what I think, am I not complicit in the problem?
At Reed and nationwide, we have largely stayed silent, probably hoping that this extremist moment in campus politics eventually peters out. But it is wishful thinking to imagine that the conversation will change on its own. It certainly won’t change if more voices representing more positions aren’t added to it. . . . Nuance and careful reasoning are not the tools of the oppressor.
If some evil right-wing genius set out to marginalize and destroy the academy, xe could do no better than the campus left is doing on its own. But bravo to Prof. Valdivia for her courage.
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS: House panel says it will get bank records from firm behind Trump dossier.
Flashback: Executives of Firm Tied to Trump Dossier Take the Fifth at Committee Meeting.
IT’S A REFLEX AMONG A CERTAIN CROWD: “Oh, a gratuitous swipe at Palin. She needs to go back on autospeak, where she was charming as hell. And maybe give a little thought to why (some) people like Sarah Palin so much. It’s the freedom, the spriteliness. Maybe try it on purpose some time.”
WHICH IS WEIRD, BECAUSE THAT KIND OF LEAK IS A FEDERAL CRIME: Mueller Probe’s First Act: Leak to CNN: CNN exclusively reported Friday night that Mueller’s team had filed charges.
RIP: JOHN MOLLO, OSCAR-WINNING STAR WARS COSTUME DESIGNER, DIES AT 86.
Star Wars went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1977 and received 10 Oscar nominations (and a Special Achievement award). Mollo won for best costume design.
“As you see, the costumes from Star Wars are really not so much costumes as a bit of plumbing and general automobile engineering,” he said upon receiving his Oscar, flanked by his creations of Darth Vader, Princess Leia and Stormtroopers.
Mollo won a second Academy Award in 1983 for his work on Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (he shared the award with Bhanu Athaiya, the first Indian to win).
His military knowledge first came in handy as an adviser on Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975) — both collected Oscars for costume design.
After the success of Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, Mollo’s next film was another science fiction blockbuster: Alien (1979).
Mollo’s brother Andrew produced and co-directed one of the most audacious self-financed debut films ever made, 1964’s It Happened Here, which decades before Robert Harris’ Fatherland or the Amazon production of The Man in the High Castle imagined if Germany had won the war and conquered England. Its production began in 1956, and eventually Stanley Kubrick (who would later hire John Mollo for Barry Lyndon) donated leftover film stock from Dr. Strangelove to help bring it to fruition. Peter Suschitzky, the film’s cinematographer, would later go on to be the director of photography on a little movie called The Empire Strikes Back.
GIRLS WILL BE BOYS AND BOYS WILL BE GIRLS. IT’S A MIXED UP, MUDDLED UP, SHOOK UP WORLD, EXCEPT FOR CHELSEA:
Flashback: Chelsea Handler wants military coup to overthrow Trump.
UPDATE: California Moves To Jail People Who Use the Wrong Pronoun.
You know what to do next, Sacramento.
IT IS HARD TO MAKE A MAN NOTICE THINGS WHEN HIS SALARY DEPENDS UPON NOT NOTICING THEM: Did Dana Milbank not understand that he was working with a man who was sexually harassing women? “Come on, Mr. Milbank. Give me a break. How did you get into a ‘cone of ignorance’? You’re supposed to be a journalist, and yet you lacked basic awareness of the environment in which you worked, and you claim to know nothing about the precise matter that would make you look bad now that you know you got the advantage of the favor of this man who was (allegedly) making the workplace unequal for women?”
QED:
AT AMAZON, Top Gift Ideas.
Plus, save in Snow Removal.
Also, save on Generators and Portable Power.
I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY TRUMP DOESN’T TRUST THE STATE DEPARTMENT:
The basement was dominated by State Department employees, who are officially barred from political activism while living abroad but tend to support Democrats; some, anticipating a Hillary Clinton victory, were even calling the occasion a party. On the wall hung a Donald Trump piñata.
By midmorning Kabul time, however, Trump had taken a commanding lead, and the mood in the embassy basement began to shift. Ties came undone, breakfast Danishes were anxiously devoured, and under the red, white and blue bunting, a stunned silence settled in. The cover band that had been playing earlier packed up its instruments. Some of the diplomats were typing furiously on their BlackBerrys. Others stepped outside to smoke, leaving behind a more Trump-friendly crowd of uniformed soldiers and veterans who had returned to Afghanistan as private contractors.
Sheesh.
HEY, VASSAR FOLKS: When somebody like Professor Jacobson is using the words “actual malice,” you should be worried.
AT AMAZON, $10 and Under with Free Shipping.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
