Archive for 2018
December 13, 2018
BRAVE SIR SWALWELL RAN AWAY: Congressman Who Issued Veiled Threat To Nuke Gun Owners Runs From Kent State Grad Gun Girl.
MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE REALLY OLD BOSS: Pelosi Agrees To Term Limits, Secures Votes To Be The Next Speaker.
Was there ever a doubt?
SHORT JACK DANIEL’S STOCK IMMEDIATELY. Keith Richards has given up drinking: “It was time to quit.”
ANALYSTS: TRUE. Chuck Grassley Says Russia ‘hysteria’ overshadows China threat.
At a Judiciary hearing today on Chinese espionage activities, Grassley (R-Iowa) said the media hysteria over Russia neglects “China’s efforts to overtake the United States as the world’s preeminent superpower in all phases of society.”
His remarks come as the Trump administration plans a major push this week to punish China over its intellectual property theft and amid increasing tensions between Washington and Beijing over charges against a top Huawei executive.
But Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have also sought to downplay the effects of Russia’s 2016 election interference campaign by increasingly pointing to China as a malign force on the world stage.
That’s Politico‘s Tim Starks, still hanging tight to that slender COLLUSION! reed.
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Boy Scouts On Verge Of Bankruptcy.
OCASIO-CORTEZ IS WORSE THAN YOU OR PELOSI THOUGHT: The American Spectator’s David Catron lays out the several fronts on which the It Girl from New York can be a real pain in the — for the presumptive Speaker of the House.
But he also offers this warning for the freshman who breathlessly told her supporters recently that her office is a mere two doors down the hall from the California Democrat: “Pelosi has been a member of the House since June of 1987, more than two years before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born. Nancy Pelosi has seen a lot of ambitious young fire breathers immolated by their own hubris.”
Read Catron now, then store it away to re-read in six months. It should be clear by then whether or not AOC figured it out.
UPDATE: Yes, I know, AOC represents a district that includes parts of the Bronx and Queens instead of Brooklyn, as I originally wrote above. Hey, I’m from the South and you know how confusing all those big Northern cities can be for us.
IN THE MAIL: From Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
ROGER SIMON: Strasbourg ‘Gangster-Jihadist’ Makes Nancy and Chuck Seem Clueless.
Read the whole thing.
IT’S TOM CLANCY ON ACID: China Arrests Kim Jong-un’s Canadian Drinking Buddy, Friend of Rodman.
According to the Daily Caller, an App called “Parler News” has seen a surge in users in such a short amount of time, the majority of them looking for free speech alternatives to the oppressive Twitter trust and safety nightmare.
This [is] less than good news for Twitter, whom many thought was too big to fail. According to Parler News CEO John Matze, however, Twitter’s hubris will be its downfall.
“Alternative platforms will rise and those who are bold will switch,” said Matze in a post. “Big tech is not too big to topple, in fact, they are blinded by their size/power and are hurting themselves by ideologically targeting groups.”
Many names have already made their way there, including TPUSA’s Candace Owens, the NRA, Paul Joseph Watson, and Laura Loomer.
Well, good — Twitter is a cesspit, and an oppressive one at that.
I’ll check into the app over the next few days and report back.
CAMPUS KANGAROO COURT UPDATE: Appeals court blasts USC for indifference to evidence that could exonerate accused student. “Tuesday’s ruling is the third straight in favor of an accused student by a California appeals court in less than four months.”
ROGER KIMBALL: Andrew Sullivan’s False Gods.
CAN OUR GOVERNMENT BE COMPETENT? JIMMY CARTER SAYS YES! When Democrats Loved Deregulation, from Matt Welch at Reason TV:
Classical reference in headline, one that’s too funky to simply hyperlink to:
SURPRISING NO ONE WHO REGULARLY READS INSTAPUNDIT OR VODKAPUNDIT: Japan is loading up on F-35s for an aircraft carrier meant to check China.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Illinois women’s studies dept: Abolish ICE and police. Hard to believe some people think Women’s Studies programs should be abolished as substanceless political operations.
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INDIA AND THE U.S. CONTINUE THE DIPLOMATIC ROMANCE: My latest Creators Syndicate column. Expansionist China is the reason. The Washington-New Delhi relationship isn’t an alliance — not yet. However, the Quad has caught China’s attention. And it should. The second link leads to a column from April 2018 which discusses the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Chapter 3 of my new book Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century examines Chinese imperialism in the South China Sea and the Himalayas. It will be published December 18. Pre-order now and get it by Christmas!
VERY RELATED: Stephen Green’s post at 7:56 am on forced tech transfer.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Flynn, Cohen Sentencing and Much, Much More. “Just to remind you, Mike Flynn was urged (by the fired, anti-Trump Andrew McCabe) not to bring an attorney to his meeting with FBI agents. And this: “McCabe also wrote in the memo that he and other FBI officials decided before the meeting that Flynn would not be warned ahead of the interview about the penalties of lying to the agents. McCabe noted that ‘they wanted Flynn to be relaxed’ and ‘were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport.'” HOLY CIVIL LIBERTIES BAT MAN!”
GOODYEAR SHUTS DOWN IN VENEZUELA AND GIVES TIRES AS SEVERANCE.
Pity so much bad luck just seems to keep happening there.
REMEMBER, THE ANTI-TRUMP FOLKS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE RESPONSIBLE, SENSIBLE, RULE-OF-LAW CROWD: Al Green Hints He’ll Move to Impeach Trump for ‘Bigotry.’
ANALYSIS: VRAI. Macron Just Doesn’t Get It. “He and others on the left are being swept along by world-historical forces they do not fully understand.”
From the beginning I’ve been a supporter of Macron and his desire to extend economic globalization. But here’s the problem: The West is experiencing a loss of relative status, due to diminished power and influence. Western societies, including France, are being transformed by immigration beyond what many of their native-born citizens had expected. The rising prominence of terror, migration and security issues have boosted some of the less salubrious sides of the right wing. Add to that mix wage stagnation and the increasingly common view — held by 91 percent in France — that today’s children will not have better lives than their parents. Finally, the decline of organized religion, especially pronounced in Western Europe, has created a spiritual vacuum and a crisis of meaning.
In response, people want something beyond more income redistribution (what the left is offering) or more globalization (what the pre-populist right used to offer). People want ideas and inspiration, and when no good new ideas are put forward, the current default seems to be nationalist ideas, including of the less tolerant variety.
Actually, what they seem to want is a chance to do better, which the French system simply won’t allow. And if Claire Berlinski’s report is anything to go by — the violent minority assortment of communists, socialists, and anarchists aside — France is experiencing something very much like our 2009-2010 Tea Party protests. Then, like now, legitimate concerns about taxes and spending and the Leviathan State were dismissed by the intelligentsia as latent racism, nativism, fear of “the other,” etc.
I don’t pretend to fully understand what’s going on either, but a little less condescension might go a long way.
WEIRD, EVERYBODY IN THE MEDIA IS ACTING LIKE HIS PRESIDENCY IS OVER: ‘Strongest’ polling for Trump in 22 months, nation bullish on 2019. “For the first time since February 2017, Trump’s ‘disapproval rating’ has dropped to below 50 percent, a significant achievement considering the recent GOP elections and wildly swinging stock market. . . . And looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election, a majority of Republican voters, 56 percent, do not believe Trump should face a primary challenger.”