MESSAGE FROM CPAC: Conservatives to Congress: Get moving.
Archive for 2017
February 24, 2017
SALENA ZITO: Why all your news now comes with a heap of condescension.
Coverage of Trump is often treated as a proxy for how the press thinks of Trump’s supporters. That might be unfair to national reporters chasing down a controversial president. But the disconnect is exacerbated by the fact that far too many Americans don’t have a local press that understands them, and thus all their news comes with a heap of condescension.
Reporters don’t like it when these voters talk down “the media,” as if they’re all part of one monolithic blob. But to those who used to have local news and reporters who lived among them, that’s precisely what the national press is.
Read the whole thing.
NONSENSE. FEELING SUPERIOR TO THE DEPLORABLES IS THE MAIN REASON TO BE A DEMOCRAT. Nicholas Kristof: Trump Voters Aren’t The Enemy.
There are three reasons I think it’s shortsighted to direct liberal fury at the entire mass of Trump voters, a complicated (and, yes, diverse) group of 63 million people.
First, stereotyping a huge slice of America as misogynist bigots is unfair and impairs understanding. Hundreds of thousands of those Trump supporters had voted for Barack Obama. Many are themselves black, Latino or Muslim. Are they all bigots?
Second, demonizing Trump voters feeds the dysfunction of our political system. One can be passionate about one’s cause, and fight for it, without contributing to political paralysis that risks making our country ungovernable.
Tolerance is a liberal value; name-calling isn’t. . . .
Well, I dunno about that. Plus:
The third reason is tactical: It’s hard to win over voters whom you’re insulting.
Many liberals argue that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and that the focus should be on rallying the base and fighting voter suppression efforts. Yes, but Democrats flopped in Congress, governor races and state legislatures. Republicans now control 68 percent of partisan legislative chambers in the U.S.
If Democrats want to battle voter suppression, it’s crucial to win local races — including in white working-class districts in Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere.
Yes, a majority of Trump voters are probably unattainable for Democrats, but millions may be winnable. So don’t blithely give up on 63 million people; instead, make arguments directed at them. Fight for their votes not with race-baiting but with economic pitches for the working and middle classes.
Clinton’s calling half of Trump voters “deplorables” achieved nothing and probably cost her critical votes. Why would Democrats repeat that mistake?
Because feeling superior to the deplorables is one of the main reasons to be a Democrat?
SURE, BUT WHEN DEMOCRATS DO IT IT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: Despite the Hysteria, Trump Is Trending Less Authoritarian Than Obama.
PROFESSOR: Don’t Ignore Your Republican Students:
I worry quite a bit for students who I know feel passionately about Republican politics. They, too, deserve to come to class feeling as though they are welcome to share their opinions, that what they have to say matters, and that the classroom is indeed a space for debate and conversation about differing viewpoints. My conservative and progressive students aren’t mounting attacks against each other, but with the intensity of the debate on the liberal side, I fear that Republican students will not only self-censor in my course, but also feel even more marginalized on the college campus than they have in the past. . . . And I also know this still to be true: Despite Trump’s victory, this is also a terrible time to be a college Republican — perhaps one of the worst. College campuses, by and large, tend to be progressive places. Republican students see protests of Trump decisions they may agree with — the implication being that what Republicans stand for is racist, evil, and perhaps a threat to the very nature of American democracy.
Good advice, even if she goes on to say that there’s a “moral imperative” to dismiss Trump.
I THINK, TO DATE, THIS IS MY BEST BOOK: This is an e-arc, i.e. an uncorrected manuscript that the company allows readers to buy if they want the book RIGHT NOW. E-arc of Darkship Revenge.
Oh, and this cover, by Stephen Hickman is probably the best or second best cover I’ve ever got (vying too close to call to the cover of Darkship Thieves.) As authors have no say over these, this was an exceptionally lucky draw.
YOUR MASTERS ARE THOSE YOU CAN’T MOCK: Danish man who videoed himself burning the Quran charged with blasphemy.
SO MANY YEARS AGO I WROTE A VERY SILLY MYSTERY: Finally, after many years, it and its two sequels have reverted to me. I’m bringing them out and will probably finish and add the never-published fourth by mid-March. (Yes, I know I have other series to continue as well. After the year of … 5? 6? moves we’re settling in and that too will happen. There’s mostly a lot of final edits to get through.) So, without further ado, here is Dipped, Stripped and Dead. BTW, the cover is by Jack Wylder, a friend of Larry Correia’s and a superb artist. Highly recommended.
CIRCLING FIRING SQUADS TO THE LEFT: Liberal activists warn party’s lawmakers: Primaries are coming.
IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING: Outside The Beltway, It’s Morning In America Again.
WHY WAS SHE HIRED IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE OUTGOING ADMINISTRATION? Questions loom over who picked America’s chief statistician.
GOOD SHOW, SIR: European welfare benefits help fund ISIS fighters.
ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD FROM A VERY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE: Milo and the Bookstore.
OH, I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THAT. THE LEFT THINKS IT’S WRONG TO BAIT THEM: Milo Yiannopoulos got punished despite having done nothing wrong!
OUR HAWKISH ‘WORLD WAR T’ ELITES: On transgender bathroom access in schools, ruling class waging war on common sense.
To mash-up Donald Rumsfeld, Thomas Sowell, and Hillary Clinton, when you’re the anointed, you go to war against the deplorables you have.
February 23, 2017
CHANGE: AFL-CIO cutting staff as union membership declines. “The union spokesman blamed the downsizing on ‘well-financed anti-union opposition’ but it’s really the result of former members who have been freed up by right-to-work laws to not have union dues taken from their paychecks. Wisconsin saw a decrease of over 100,000 union members after the passage of ACT 10 in 2011. Michigan, which passed a right-to-work law in 2013, lost 20,000 union members between 2015 and last year. AFL-CIO is not the only union to downsize since Trump was elected. In December the SEIU announced it was planning for 30% budget cuts.”
If unions provided value, people would pay dues voluntarily.
TED CRUZ AT CPAC: ‘Do Democrats Understand They Need to Control the House to Impeach?’
On the flip-side, does their base understand this is simply the posturing the establishment left does every time there’s a Republican in the White House?
STRESS HORMONE LINKED TO PERSISTENT OBESITY. “The paper published today in the journal Obesity found that people who have a higher level of the stress hormone cortisol, which affect’s the body’s metabolism and how it distributes fat, over a long period of time may be more likely to be obese. Their levels of cortisol were measured through hair samples.”
WAIT, SOCIAL-MEDIA PHOTOS ARE OFTEN prettied up with makeup? Next you’ll tell me that people photoshop themselves to look better.
THIS IS CNN. Chris Cuomo: If a 12-Year-Old Girl Doesn’t Want to See a Penis In the Locker Room, That’s Either Because of Her “Overprotective Dad” or Her Own Lack of “Tolerance.”
Related: Video surfaces of Time-Warner-CNN-HBO’s Bill Maher condoning sex between an adult and a 14-year-old.
SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: HOW “CLIMATE CHANGE” APOCALYPTICS NEARLY CAUSED A DAM CATASTROPHE IN CALIFORNIA.
(Classical reference in headline.)