Archive for 2017

TRUMP HITS THE RIGHT NOTES ON CUBA AND VENEZUELA:

From The Miami Herald:

“The socialist dictatorship” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “is completely unacceptable,” Trump told the General Assembly. He added that “we cannot stand by and watch,” and that the international community’s goal should be to “recover freedom, restore the country, return to democracy.”

On Cuba, Trump called the Cuban regime “corrupt” and “destabilizing” and said he will not lift U.S. sanctions on the Cuban government until Cuba enacts “fundamental reforms.”

Indeed.

PETER ROBINSON: Trump Through a Pinhole.

Congress may have thwarted the administration’s effort to replace Obamacare, but wherever the administration has been able to take action on its own it has done just that, demonstrating not incompetence but considerable effectiveness.

Consider ISIS. When Trump gave him a free hand in dealing with the terrorist organization, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that the United States and its allies would no longer permit ISIS to recapture territory after staging merely tactical retreats. Instead we would encircle ISIS forces—and destroy them. Since then, the territory that ISIS controls has fallen by roughly one half. Or look at illegal immigration. After three decades in which administrations of both parties have failed to enforce immigration laws that were already on the books, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has begun to do so. Illegal immigration has dropped by some 70 percent.

The list goes on. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has begun rolling back regulations, notably on clean water, that the EPA had used to usurp the legislative function of Congress. OMB Director Mick Mulvaney has announced that for every new regulation any federal agency promulgates it must eliminate two. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has overturned the sexual harassment rules that the Obama administration had forced on universities. The White House has followed the nomination of Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court with the nominations of more than 30 others to the federal bench—and each of those nominees is, like Gorsuch, a thoroughly vetted originalist.

Still only eight months old, the Trump administration has demonstrated the ability to absorb new information and adjust to circumstances—that is, to learn in real time. It has displayed seriousness. It has gotten things done.

This — and the media’s Pavlovian response to them — is why Trump tweets.

Anyway, do read the whole thing.

BEYOND EQUIFAX: Top SEC Officials Only Recently Learned of 2016 Company-Database Hack.

Mr. Piwowar, who led the agency from late January until early May, said he was “recently informed for the first time” about the hack into the SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System, known as Edgar.

Former SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, who led the agency in 2016, declined to comment when asked about the hack.

The agency appeared not to have followed the typical protocols for public companies, where cybersecurity issues are overseen by the board of directors, said Thomas Sporkin, a former SEC enforcement official.

“You would have expected the commission to have been informed of a breach to an SEC database that houses information critical to investors,” said Mr. Sporkin, now a partner at law firm Buckley Sandler LLP.

Mr. Clayton’s statement described other SEC vulnerabilities to hackers, but provided few details about intrusion, possible trading or which companies might have been affected. The SEC hasn’t responded to requests for additional details.

The country’s in the very best of hands.

ALLIES: Free Speech Activists Brawl with Supporters of Turkish President Erdoğan in Times Square.

Yashar Ali tweets that “Erdogan’s security detail beats up American protesters. It appears he has given the orders directly.”. And the link goes to several videos, at least one of which seems to show Erdogan doing just that.

Meanwhile: Trump Lauds Close ‘Friend of Mine’ Erdoğan as ‘Getting Very High Marks.’

Developing, as they say.

A SURPRISINGLY GOOD TAKE FROM OLIVER WILLIS:

WHY ARE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HEROES SUCH HYPOCRITICAL PEDDLERS OF ANTISEMITIC TROPES?

Plus:

MODERATION IN ALL THINGS: High, low levels of magnesium linked to dementia risk. “In a study of more than 9,500 men and women, the highest or lowest levels of magnesium appeared to increase the chances for dementia by as much as 30 percent.”

I TALK WITH ANDREW KLAVAN ABOUT THE “SEXUAL CRISIS” WITH TEENS, men on strike and politics on his Daily Wire podcast. You can listen to the discussion here (21 minutes in).

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Substitute teacher and former girls soccer coach is arrested for having sex with one of her students in Michigan after sending naked photos of herself. “Allyson Brittany Moran, 26, was arrested Thursday in Illinois, Michigan State Police said. She would face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. She faces three felony counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a student and one misdemeanor count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a student.”

KURT SCHLICHTER: Unleashing The Power Of Mockery On Annoying Social Justice Warriors.

In a culture where humorless leftists scolds seek to impose their rule upon us normals by sucking every drop of joy out of life, it is the conservative smartass who is the true subversive. Don’t look to Hollywood’s allegedly edgy comics to zing the zeitgeist – hacky proggy stand-ups and interchangeable liberal late-night hosts are the opposite of rebels, with their dreadfully generic opinions and lockstep jokes designed to get the herd of trained seals that makes up their fish-breathed audience beating their flippers. No, if you want someone who snarks truth to power instead of speaking consensus coastal truth to the powerless, you gotta step to the right.

And Lisa de Pasquale is one of these conserva-revolutionaries, a young woman who is in equal parts funny and fearless. She has a new book dropping, The Social Justice Warrior Handbook: A Practical Survival Guide for Snowflakes, Millennials, and Generation Z, and it does exactly what today’s embattled conservatives need to do – it goes full bull in the progressive china shop.

Good. Plus:

SJWs deserve nothing but contempt and the merciless ridicule that goes with it. Yet, sadly, we Americans are usually reflexively too polite to deliver the verbal beatdowns these dorks deserve. Because we are genuinely nice people, we generally assume that other people are acting in good faith even when what they are saying is manifestly idiotic. We tend to think, “Hmmmm, that sounds really insane, but I should give this person the benefit of the doubt and react in a polite manner when she bursts into tears because, she says, my not accepting that men can menstruate is a hate crime.”

What we should think, and say, is “You’re stupid, so stop talking and finish filling my latte order, weirdo.”

SJWs prey on that default presumption of good faith, knowing that normals will assume SJWs sincerely mean whatever idiocy they spew. But the truth is that all this nonsense about microaggressions and such is just a way to impose their fussy control over us. The remedy, as these Millennial morons might say, is for us normals to “get woke” to the SJW okie-doke, and to recognize that their whole deal is to silence us by socially criminalizing anything we say, do, and believe.

Yes.