ACE OF SPADES: On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, in their feverish efforts to derail Trump’s cabinet, the DNC-MSM has “chosen the form of their Destructor, and the form they have chosen is they themselves.”
Archive for 2017
January 19, 2017
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Trump’s Pre-Presidency: A Report Card.
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ENGLISH IDIOMS: Shakespeare, falconry and “under my thumb.”
Good read.
CRYING WOLF: Garrison Keillor ponders quitting Christianity over Trump in a column the Washington Post saw fit to publish (link safe; goes to Hot Air):
And so the Boy President heads for Washington to be sworn into office, pumping his fist, mooning the media, giving the stinky finger to whomever irks him, doing his end-zone dance, promising to build the wall, cut taxes, create jobs, provide great health insurance for EVERYONE and send his son-in-law to the Middle East to solve that little problem, and the rest of us will sit in a barn and keep ourselves warm and hide our heads under our wings, poor things. Discouraging.
So I’ve been shopping around for a new religion to see me through the next four years. Too many of my fellow Christians voted for selfishness and for degradation of the beautiful world God created. I guess they figured that by the time the planet was a smoky wasteland, they’d be nice and comfy in heaven, so wotthehell. Anyhow, I’m looking around for other options.
Many of which were the same people that Keillor denigrated in 2004 thusly:
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.
That doesn’t sound like a very Christian attitude toward your fellow man. On the other hand, as Christopher Caldwell memorably put it that same year: “At some point, Democrats became the party of small-town people who think they’re too big for their small towns…For these people, liberalism is not a belief at all. No, it’s something more important: a badge of certain social aspirations. That is why the laments of the small-town leftists get voiced with such intemperance and desperation. As if those who voice them are fighting off the nagging thought: If the Republicans aren’t particularly evil, then maybe I’m not particularly special.”
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Soft Robot Hugs Your Heart to Keep It Pumping.
QUIN HILLYER: Saul Alinsky Leaves the White House.
Obama and company also waged bureaucratic war against independent inspectors general; tried their hardest (even illegally) to hobble fossil fuels industries; evaded Congress’s intent by sending cash and uranium to a near-nuclear-ready Iran; fumbled and stumbled while veterans suffered virtually criminal neglect; wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on projects that were not “shovel-ready” and did not create many jobs; oversaw an economy in which the workforce participation rate dropped to historically low levels while real median household income also fell and personal debt rose, and in which food stamp rolls grew to a number larger than the population of Spain; horrendously politicized the Justice Department; and saw race relations worsen for the first time in decades.
In what should have been treated by the media as major scandals (or more major than the media represented them), the Obama administration encouraged illegal gun-running to Mexican cartels, with untold numbers of resultant deaths; failed to provide adequate security before or rescue during the Benghazi tragedy; provided tax subsidies in return for campaign cash from useless “green energy” companies; spied on journalists; freed five killers in return for a deserter; failed to police or protect email use at the State Department; polluted a river through the ineptitude of the Gold King Mine Disaster; illegally (arguably) granted, to political allies only, numerous “waivers” from Obamacare; and of course committed the actions I related in the first paragraph of this piece, including the dismissal of the New Black Panther case and the IRS targeting of conservative groups.
And in almost every case, they covered up and/or lied about these actions, often egregiously and sometimes, quite arguably, criminally.
And those are only the major scandals and embarrassments.
Read the whole thing.
THE PRIVILEGE OF THE GLOBAL ELITE: In Davos, the Police Will Disarm Your Drone in a Heartbeat.
WELL, HILLARY SCHEMED TO HELP HIM GET THE GOP NOMINATION. HOW DID THAT WORK OUT FOR HER? Russia Fears That Trump Won’t Be Such a Great Deal After All.
MORE COWBELL: The 5 Most Irritating Musicians and Bands.
READER BOOK PLUG: From Donald Crankshaw, et al., Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith.
STANDING UP AGAINST EXPLOITATIVE BIG BUSINESS: Mississippi AG Jim Hood sues Google—again.
BACKTRACK: Perry regrets saying he would abolish Energy Department.
“My past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking,” Perry said at his confirmation hearing Thursday to be secretary of Energy.
“In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.”
It would have been better if he’d have stuck to his guns, if only to keep the Fear of God flowing through an entire cabinet-level department.
ROGER KIMBALL: Is The Left Dangerous? “It’s not just that the country is divided as it hasn’t since, oh, since 1860, but also that the Left, for a whole host of reasons, is weaponized in a way it hasn’t been since — well, I was going to say since the late 1960s, but the truth is that what Trump is facing is a union of Left-wing animus and bureaucratized establishment spinelessness and accommodation that is probably unique.”
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FINAL (?) NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: U.S. Bombers Hit Islamic State in Libya.
American B-2 bombers struck at multiple sites in Libya on Wednesday evening, hitting an Islamic State training camp and other locations and killing dozens of Islamic State fighters, according to Pentagon officials, in what represents a broadening of the U.S. war against the extremist group in northern Africa.
The Pentagon and coalition members in the fight against Islamic State in Libya were still assessing the impact of the strikes, but as many as 90 Islamic State fighters may have been killed, according to military officials.
The strikes occurred in the desert outside Sirte, Libya, a city where the Pentagon last month concluded an intense airstrike campaign against Islamic State. But even after Sirte had been judged to be clear of Islamic State fighters, some militants had escaped the coastal city to outlying areas.
It’s always nice to kill ISIS fighters, but sending high-value B-2 stealth bombers into a low-risk area seems like overkill.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, GENETIC DECLINE EDITION: Natural selection is causing a decline in human ‘education genes’, say scientists.
A study involving more than 100,000 people in Iceland found that those who carry the genes for longer education time were less likely to have a big family, which means the smartest people in the room were actually contributing less to the Icelandic gene pool. . . .
Once that polygenetic score was correlated with factors like educational attainment, fertility, and birth years, the researchers found that those with a higher genetic propensity towards more education tended to have fewer children.
They also found that the average polygenetic score has been declining at a small, but significant rate on an evolutionary timescale.
As Ian Sample reports for The Guardian, the team found a drop in IQ of about 0.04 points per decade, but if all the genetic factors that could be linked to education were taken into account, that figure would increase to 0.3 points per decade.
Interestingly, the link between a higher propensity towards more education and having fewer children wasn’t because going to university is hard, and eats into your family-raising time – the team suggests that the genes involved in education can also affect human fertility on a biological level.
Because even those who carried the genes for longer education time, but who did not actually get more education, still had fewer offspring on average than those without the genetic factor.
This may explain why humanity hasn’t gotten steadily smarter.
NOBODY TELL NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS: Why We Should All Be Having Sex With Robots.
LET’S GROOVE: LGBT Activists Throw ‘Queer Dance Party’ at VP-Elect Pence’s House.
Sounds fun, but what did they hope to accomplish?
UPDATE: Word on Twitter is that the event only lasted half an hour, which officially makes this the worst-ever gay dance party at any location.
ANOTHER UPDATE (From Glenn): Don Surber in the comments for the win: “I always said gay people would be dancing in the streets with the election of President Trump. And I was right!”
FAKE NEWS: That New York Times hit piece on Perry was unsubstantiated garbage. “Despite the story’s obviously thin sourcing, members of the press were quick to spread the article on social media, each apparently trying to one-up the other in terms [of] alarmism.” Plus:
First, the article’s lone source, Michael McKenna, was booted from the Trump transition team in November 2016. Perry was appointed to the role in December 2016.
Second, the quote attributed to McKenna is pure speculation. It’s him theorizing about what the former governor may be thinking now compared to what he thought back in December when he was first offered the job.
How the Times took that single quote and presented the headline and opening paragraphs as solid fact is anyone’s guess.
Third, according McKenna, the quote isn’t even accurate. He told the Daily Caller Wednesday evening that his already bland remarks were badly misinterpreted by the Times. He said the report “[doesn’t] really reflect what I said,” adding that Perry “of course” understood the job when he accepted it.
Fourth, Amarillo, Texas, serves as the primary location for the assembly and disassembly of the nation’s nuclear weapons. Nearly two-thirds of the Department of Energy’s budget goes to maintaining those stockpiles. As a reminder, Perry, a former member of the United States Air Force, served as governor of Texas for 15 years. He is not unaware of those projects.
No, but most of the “journalists” mocking him as ignorant probably are.
HMM:
Every President since Bill Clinton promised to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but none delivered for fear of offending Arab sensibilities.
THE CLASSIEST, MOST LUXURIOUS AXE: Trump team prepares dramatic cuts.
The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.
A trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real cuts.