Archive for 2018
August 23, 2018
NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Claims Global Warming Is Killing Americans, Gov Allowing It.
Tweets, “we will need a Green New Deal to survive.” A new, New Deal? Such bold, innovative thinking!
PREPAREDNESS: Scramble for food and water as Hurricane Lane approaches Hawaii.
Governor David Ige urged residents to prepare for the worst by setting aside a 14-day supply of water, food and medicines.
“I urge our residents and visitors to take this threat seriously and prepare for a significant impact,” the governor said at a news conference in the state capital, Honolulu.
The shelves of a downtown Honolulu Walmart were stripped of items ranging from canned tuna to dog food. Shoppers jostled with one another to get the last boxes of ramen noodles.
“There’s nothing in there,” said one shopper leaving the store.
It’s much more convenient and generally cheaper to get prepared way ahead of time than it is right before disaster hits.
RUSSIA SEEMS TO BE UNVEILING A LOT OF “WEAPONS SYSTEMS” DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR PR: Russia Unveils Giant Combat Walker. “The walker features a cockpit for a human pilot, a pair of arms ending in pinchers, and enormous metal legs ending in ski-like feet. It has no obvious signs of weapons nor does it appear to be anything more than a nonworking mockup. Important details such as power plant, carrying capacity, and armor are all left unexplained.”
It’s gotten a lot of publicity, though.
JOHN HAWKINS: The Media’s Latest Scam: Trump’s Going to Be Impeached Because of the Michael Cohen Plea. “Do you think Trump’s in trouble?”
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Unsexy Truth About the Avital Ronell Scandal.
(Via Virginia Postrel.)
ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN: The Senate Accused Them of Selling Kids for Sex. The FBI Raided Their Homes. Backpage.com’s Founders Speak for the First Time. “An inside look at how indie media veterans James Larkin and Michael Lacey became the targets of a federal witchhunt.”
Both men argue that the case against them is politically motivated and that current stalling on the state’s part is designed to force a plea. But “they’re going to have to win this in court,” says Lacey, “and we don’t think they can. And our lawyers don’t think they can.”
Officially, Larkin, Lacey, and several of their former colleagues were accused of money laundering, conspiracy, and violating the Travel Act, which says local crimes become federal business when they cross state lines. But in the court of public opinion, you’ll hear that they were complicit in facilitating underage prostitution as the founders and former owners of the now-shuttered classified ad website Backpage.
After its 2004 launch, Backpage became inextricably linked in the popular imagination with sex trafficking, thanks to a relentless campaign by well-funded activists, government lawyers, and some of the nation’s most prominent politicians. Officials heralded the April 2018 FBI seizure of the website and the arrests of Lacey and Larkin as a major victory against the exploitation of women and children.
Yet even the charges both men face hint at the weakness of that story. Neither Lacey nor Larkin is accused of directly participating in any sexual exchange or of having knowledge about any particular crimes advanced through the platform. In fact, law enforcement sources have over the years consistently applauded Backpage for its help making cases against predators and locating runaway teens.
The story of their arrest, then, is better understood as one of near-religious fervor, government greed, and political retribution, in which an escalating panic over commercial sex coincided with a booming online publishing platform.
Bombshell stuff. Read the whole thing.
#LISTENANDBELIEVE: Asia Argento Accuser Jimmy Bennett Says He Was “Ashamed and Afraid” to Speak Out. “At the time I believed there was still a stigma to being in the situation as a male in our society. I didn’t think that people would understand the event that took place from the eyes of a teenage boy.”
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Buddhist Indonesia woman irked by noisy mosque sentenced to 18 months in prison for blasphemy. Additionally, “Mobs burned and ransacked at least 14 Buddhist temples throughout Tanjung Balai, a port town on Sumatra, in a July 2016 riot following reports of Meiliana’s complaint about a mosque’s noisy loudspeakers.”
HMM: Germany accused of betraying pledge to combat anti-Semitism by ignoring Iran sanctions.
The German government is under fire for betraying its pledge to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, in light of Berlin’s efforts to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran.
The criticism comes after Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, argued for a new world order without the U.S. as the leader.
In a hard-charging attack on the Trump administration, Maas said Germany “will not allow [the U.S.] to go over our heads, and at our expense.”
“It is therefore essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels independent of the US, a European monetary fund and an independent SWIFT [payments] system,” he wrote in German business daily Handelsblatt. “The devil is in thousands of details. But every day that the Iran [nuclear] agreement lasts, is better than the potentially explosive crisis that threatens the Middle East otherwise.”
His comments drew ire from Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of U.S. human rights organization of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“Circumventing sanctions on an Iranian regime that is committed in word and deed to destroy Israel for financial gain for German companies makes a mockery of that [Berlin’s] commitment” to implement the lessons of the Holocaust, he told FoxNews.com.
German businesses had been at least appearing to come along with Trump’s renewed sanctions regime, but maybe some things about Berlin never change.
IN THE MAIL: Basic Math and Pre-Algebra Workbook For Dummies.
Plus, Today’s Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
TYLER O’NEIL: Judge Foils ‘Deep State Bureaucrats’ in Obamacare Case, Demands IRS Return $839M to 6 States. “Busting a bureaucrat ‘money laundering scheme’.”
WHY IS FACEBOOK BLOCKING Salena Zito’s article on Trump supporters? I’m seeing a lot of complaints on Facebook about legitimate links being blocked as spam last night and tonight.
MORE SWAMP-DRAINING NEEDED: For some reason, the administration is considering reappointing Obama holdout Mark Pearce to the National Labor Relations Board. Pearce helped author some blatant give-aways to labor unions under the Democrat majority, including one a court found simply “legally unsupportable.” A group of free market organizations, including mine, has urged the President to stop this reappointment. You can see our letter here.
JEFFREY SINGER: New FDA Initiative Implies CDC Opioid Guidelines Are Not Evidence-Based.
We have a real opioid problem, and we also have a political response thereto. The connection between the two is not especially close.
WHY ARE UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXISM? Judge reverses himself, says Ohio State officials can be sued for anti-male bias.
Kelly Smith and Matthew Page – at the time, both assistant directors in the Office of Student Life – are also not entitled to “qualified immunity” in light of the Miami ruling, Judge Smith said.
Doe has “sufficiently alleged” that they violated his “clearly established” equal protection rights at the time of OSU’s adjudication – what’s known as a Section 1983 claim.
They are also not protected by 11th Amendment immunity because of Supreme Court precedent that immunity can’t be invoked in response to “a plaintiff’s requests for injunctive relief and/or declaratory judgment,” Smith said. Doe’s other claims were not approved for reinstatement.
Kelly is currently listed as director of student conduct, and Page is currently listed as assistant dean of the graduate school.
Doe’s lawsuit also named Natalie Spiert, sexual violence support coordinator, but she appears to have been removed as a defendant already.
Spiert was denied qualified immunity in another Title IX case in April, for allegedly helping a rape accuser lie about her motivation to accuse the male student.
The immunity-stripping will do a lot to reduce this sort of behavior.
WAR ON PAIN: The state of Oregon is considering cutting off Medicaid recipients from access to painkillers, directing them to chiropractors and the like instead. As my old colleague Greg Conko said back in 2008, “Pain patients aren’t drug abusers looking for a prescription fix.”
For all the love lavished on Venezuela’s Bolivarian socialism by Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, et al, I wonder if any of them actually put any money on the regime?
Not really. I’m sure the answer is no.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Instructor tries to quarantine gun owners in back of class. “A teaching assistant at the University of Utah tried to create a ‘Second Amendment zone’ in a classroom, forcing students who legally carry to stand in a tiny, taped-off area with no desk during class.”
This is the sort of mean-spirited abuse of power one expects from today’s campus left. When taxpayers lose interest in subsidizing it, we’ll be told it’s because of “anti-intellectualism.”
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