Archive for 2018
December 5, 2018
MICHAEL GOODWIN: DEMOCRATS REALLY DO LOVE REPUBLICANS — WHEN THEY’RE DEAD.
Even then, their bias tilted left, although their double standard has reached new depths in recent years. I believe the press corps’ lapdog approach to Barack Obama and attack-dog approach to Trump are part of why Americans have become so polarized.
Indeed, many Trump voters explain their support for him as a reaction to left-wing press bias and the failure of other Republicans to fight back the way Trump does.
The heydays of press hatred for Bush and McCain came during their presidential campaigns. Long before they were saluted for their late-in-life stances against Trump, Bush 41 and McCain were declared unfit to be president.
The New York Times, which last endorsed a Republican for president in 1956, backed the hapless Michael Dukakis over Bush in 1988, and Bush went on to win in a landslide, picking up more than 53 percent of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes.
Four years later, the paper supported Bill Clinton, ripping Bush’s economic management as “exasperating” and his positions on individual rights as “infuriating.” It accused him of stoking racial resentment, of going to “radical extremes” in supporting right-to-life measures, and said his “capacity to govern has collapsed.”
When Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991, he and Thomas got the same kind of character smearing that Trump and Brett Kavanaugh got this year.
Now, in his coffin, Bush is a model of American greatness.
Evan Thomas, who edited Newsweek during the last decades it was controlled by the Washington Post, personifies this breed of feckless DNC-MSM shills. Earlier this week, he apologized for calling Bush, a WWII fighter pilot, a “wimp” on the cover of Newsweek in 1987, but in June of 2009 praised Obama, a former Cook County machine hack, as “sort of God.”
CAN THEY RESIST OVERPLAYING THEIR HAND? PROBABLY NOT: House Democrats plan a witch hunt against Trump.
After Pelosi and her new majority are sworn-in, their subpoena cannon will be loaded and pointed at the White House. The Democrats will mount one politically driven investigation after another, backed by billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer, along with other rich far-left donors.
Congressional oversight of the executive branch is an important part of our system of checks and balances. But oversight only works if it’s seen as a legitimate fact-finding exercise.
The major problem for this incoming Democratic-controlled House is that the Democrats have already concluded that their investigations should all come to the conclusion that President Trump must be impeached.
With clueless demagogues-in-training like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez making up a extremely vocal segment of the Democratic caucus, they won’t be able to help themselves.
EMERGENCY ROOMS: If you wonder why more emergency rooms have been closed over the last few decades than opened, here may be part of the reason.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Legal vs. Illegal Gene Editing: Here’s What’s Banned, and Why.
IT’S LOOKING AS BAD AS THE GLOBAL ATTACK ON PHLOGISTON CHEMISTRY: Global Attack on Gender Studies. Live by politicization, die by politicization. From the comments: “Given the entire field is a gigantic intellectual void, populated only by progressive feel-good memes, this would seem to be a natural enough reaction, similar to why the study of phrenology failed in the 19th century.” Though possibly unfair to phrenology.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Feds Spend $230,769 to Increase Diversity of Veterinarians.
A grant was awarded earlier this year to Tuskegee University in Alabama, which will host workshops and seminars entitled, “So You Want to Be A Vet,” to try to recruit minorities into veterinary programs.
“The need to feed the ever increasing human population, forecast to reach over 9 billion worldwide by 2050 is clear, resulting in an increasing need to fill the shortage of scientists and professionals trained in food and agricultural sciences, including food animal veterinary medicine,” according to the grant for the project. “As concerted efforts are made to fill this void, it is imperative that underrepresented minorities be included as part of the solution.”
The stated goal of the project is to “increase the number of underrepresented minorities entering veterinary school with an emphasis in food animals.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess this seminar won’t produce much of anything except a nice travel junket.
Apparently, using private jets is de rigueur for the 21st century radical environmentalist. QED: Al Gore Thanks NBC’s Al Roker for ‘Long-Time Attention to Climate Crisis.’
Roker has done his part at addressing “climate crisis” by producing a two part episode titled “Private Jets” for the History Channel’s Modern Marvels documentary series. Skimming through it on YouTube, Roker’s documentary looks much more like an extended episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Carbon Burning, than An Inconvenient Truth.
And speaking of Lifestyles of the Rich and Carbon Burning, flashback: Gore Refuses To Take Personal Energy Ethics Pledge.
HMM: Michelle Malkin departs CRTV one day after Blaze merger announced. “I am so proud of the investigative journalism I did for CRTV. So many heroes, so many compelling stories. I will not be continuing with the company, but wish my colleagues all the best.”
IN HONOR OF TODAY BEING PROHIBITION REPEAL DAY: Can the GOP Attract Young Voters? Try Beer. “If the Republicans want to attract young voters, then lead the charge to repeal the National Minimum Age Drinking Age Act that Democrats in Congress passed in 1984.” Yep. A stupid law, passed for stupid reasons, that’s had bad effects. Though Liddy Dole deserves a good share of the blame, too. (Bumped).
DON’T WORRY, THEY’LL GET TO IT EVENTUALLY: Why Haven’t SJW Bullies Destroyed A Christmas Story Yet?
YELLOW RIBBON PROJECT: Families of Hostages Still Held by Iran Vow to ‘Remain Quiet No Longer.’ “Do what is in your power to help secure the release of our loved ones and their safe return home by ensuring that their cases are at the top of the agenda.”
FEAR PROFITEERS: My colleague Michelle Minton has an extensive report out today detailing the links between public health advocacy groups and government agencies that result in unfounded public-private scare campaigns about vaping products:
Unfortunately, promoting public health is not the sole priority of health charities. Fundraising is also a primary objective for activist groups. The most effective way to raise revenue and influence is to sound the alarm in news headlines about an urgent health problem, whether real or exaggerated.
That problem is compounded by the fact that health charities and government agencies work together to raise one another’s influence and, ultimately, increase each other’s bottom line. Anti-smoking and health advocacy groups, like the American Cancer Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, seek taxpayer-funded grants from government agencies, like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health. In turn, the taxpayer-funded activists lobby Congress to increase funding for the government agencies that bestow grants on their organizations. These incentives can distort the debate around important public health issues like smoking cessation.
And students of the economics of regulation will not be surprised to hear that alongside these baptists is a bunch of bootleggers.
The result of this self-interested campaign is the FDA’s crackdown on products that have helped many thousands, including people in my own family, stop smoking. Read Michelle’s full report here.
FALLOUT: Weekly Standard Employees Brace for the Worst as Rumors Swirl Surrounding Mag’s Imminent Demise. “#NeverTrump armageddon?”
TWS used to be a regular read, but they went quickly from reasonable critics of Candidate Trump to Democrat shills so fast it (almost) made me spill my martini.
CYBERCRIME: Emails of top NRCC officials stolen in major 2018 hack. “Republican leaders were not informed until POLITICO contacted committee officials about the incident.”
The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated and the FBI was alerted to the attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident.
However, senior House Republicans — including Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — were not informed of the hack until POLITICO contacted the NRCC on Monday with questions about the episode. Rank-and-file House Republicans were not told, either.
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who served as NRCC chairman this past election cycle, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Committee officials said they decided to withhold the information because they were intent on conducting their own investigation, and feared that revealing the hack would compromise efforts to find the culprit.
Plus: “Party officials would not say when the hack began or who was behind it, although they privately believe it was a foreign agent due to the nature of the attack.”
SHIKHA DALMIA: Betsy DeVos’ Title IX Campus Reforms Advance a Liberal Cause: Progressives who oppose them are betraying their own principles. The assumption that progressives actually have principles is a generous one.
SO IT’S COME TO THIS: University of Montana Speech Code Bans ‘Mean’ Speech.
“The ‘Statement of Responsibility’ from the university’s Student Code of Conduct explains that all members of the campus community ‘have the personal responsibility to promote an atmosphere of civility,’ and that discussions ‘should never become mean, nasty or vindictive,’” wrote FIRE’s policy reform program officer, Laura Beltz.
Of course, this raises the obvious question of who gets to decide what speech is considered “mean, nasty, or vindictive.” If I were to take a guess, based on how speech and other matters are disciplined at other universities, I’d have to say the person who decides is the person most offended, rather than a reasonable person.
Intent, in these situations, is never important to colleges and universities. One student may say something to another, without any ill intent, yet the second student may take it the wrong way and consider it “mean” or “nasty.” The second student is wrong, but that doesn’t matter, all that matters is their feelings.
Vague rules are never formulated for the benefit of those who would try to abide by them.
CHOOSING SIDES: Stanford admin suggests frat takes down American flag. “Lozano did not remove Sigma Chi’s American flag, but instead replaced the frat’s three-by-five-foot banner with a four-by-six-foot flag, framing and featuring the former flag in a prominent location inside. The then-Stanford student called the decision a ‘silent but visible protest’ against the Stanford administrator designating the American flag as potentially polarizing.”
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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Mueller Is Finished with Flynn and Much, Much More. “Really, the objective of targeting Flynn has been met, there’s no need toss him in the clink because the deep state has severely damaged him. He’s bankrupt, he lost his house, he’s going to have a problem getting employed. I’m sure his security clearance has been permanently yanked so…what’s he going to do to earn a living and take care of his wife and family?”
DID REPUBLICANS BLOW IT BY EMPHASIZING THE CARAVAN? Pollster Dave Winston dug deep into the 2018 midterm election results data and came away thinking things could have turned it quite differently.
“Here are the takeaways. The Friday before the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans were handed a gift in the form of the November monthly jobs report. Described by a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden as ‘pretty much everything you could want in a monthly jobs report,’ it was a clear sign that Republicans’ center-right economic policies were moving the economy forward, affecting not just job growth, but finally wage growth as well. And the timing couldn’t have been better, coming just four days before the election,” Winston writes in Roll Call.
But instead of making that great economic news the GOP’s closing argument, the migrant caravan heading north through Mexico to the U.S. border took center stage. Independents, who decided the election broke for Democrats by 12 points, according to Winston. I’m not sure I entirely agree with Winston’s analysis but years ago I worked with him at the RNC and have no doubt his analysis should get a close look.
BOOK FAIR THIS COMING SATURDAY IN AUSTIN, TEXAS: The Humanities Texas Holiday Book Fair. Book signing from 10 AM to 1 PM in the restored Byrne-Reed mansion, 1410 Rio Grande (corner of Rio Grande and West 15th Street).