Archive for 2018
July 24, 2018
MEGHAN McCAIN EXPLODES AT JOY BEHAR: IT’S ‘DANGEROUS’ TO ‘NORMALIZE SOCIALISM!’
That’s nice. I wish she had given Dad a few reminders of that over the past decade, though.
SURPRISE! SERVER FAKED “RACIST RECEIPT” OUTRAGE IN TEXAS. “It seems as though Saltgrass [Steakhouse] simply accepted [waiter Khalil] Cavil’s assertion as fact, even though it would be highly rare for a customer to go that far out of their way to insult a waiter’s ethnicity in writing.The Odessa American did a good job in reporting the hoax afterward, but for the week prior did little to verify the story. Instead, the paper talked about how proud Cavil’s mother was of him, and all about his civic virtue. The newspaper seemed more interested in promoting a narrative than in checking to see whether it was true. Saltgrass isn’t the only institution in Odessa with egg on its face.”
As to Cavil himself, Saltgrass declined to explain whether he had been fired or quit. “All I can say is he’s no longer with the company,” spokeswoman Colleen Wagner told the Washington Post yesterday.
If it weren’t for fake hate crimes, how many hate crimes would we have?, to coin an Insta-phrase.
VOX IS ALWAYS GOOD FOR COMIC RELIEF: Vox writer takes poll to see if white people have a positive or negative effect on America.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN & JOSH BLACKMAN: Is Robert Mueller an ‘Officer of the United States’ or an ‘Employee of the United States’? “We expect challenges concerning Mueller’s and his subordinates’ appointments to incorporate new arguments based on Lucia and on whether the special counsel is an ‘officer of the United States’ or an ’employee of the United States.'”
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM, THE EARLY DAYS: Real Mass Hysteria, American Style? Woodrow Wilson’s Domestic Terror and Red Scare.
The release of a heavily-redacted version of the FBI’s application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to wiretap onetime Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page has spurred calls to remove the redactions, to un-black out the pages blacked out by the FBI before the document was made public.
The long sections of censored material have made it impossible to reach definitive conclusions about the warrant application. It has also led to the publication of de-contextualized sensational accusations. For example, page 8 of the original warrant application contains a passage which begins with two blacked-out lines, then includes the words “the FBI believes that the Russian Government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with Candidate #1’s [Donald Trump’s] campaign,” and continues with more blacked-out material. Is there a critical prefatory clause in that sentence fragment? The answer is unclear.
Defenders of the FBI have begun to argue that the blacked-out portions contain the truly powerful evidence that supports their position.
“There is clearly information the government provided separate and apart from ‘Source #1′ (Steele) and open source info — and that fact that all those paragraphs are redacted suggests supporting info from OTHER sensitive methods and sources,” tweeted CNN commentator Asha Rangappa, a lawyer and former FBI agent.
It’s a point that is impossible to assess as long as the application remains heavily redacted. Which is why House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes — the man most responsible for bringing the application to light in the first place — is asking President Trump to declassify the rest of the warrant application.
“We want the president to take care of the rest of these redactions, so there is full transparency and sunlight for everyone to see,” Nunes told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham Monday night.
Well, stay tuned.
HISTORY: My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader.
Down the hill, near the river, in an area now overrun by bush, is the grave of my most celebrated ancestor: my great-grandfather Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku. Nwaubani Ogogo was a slave trader who gained power and wealth by selling other Africans across the Atlantic. “He was a renowned trader,” my father told me proudly. “He dealt in palm produce and human beings.”
Long before Europeans arrived, Igbos enslaved other Igbos as punishment for crimes, for the payment of debts, and as prisoners of war. The practice differed from slavery in the Americas: slaves were permitted to move freely in their communities and to own property, but they were also sometimes sacrificed in religious ceremonies or buried alive with their masters to serve them in the next life. When the transatlantic trade began, in the fifteenth century, the demand for slaves spiked. Igbo traders began kidnapping people from distant villages. Sometimes a family would sell off a disgraced relative, a practice that Ijoma Okoro, a professor of Igbo history at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, likens to the shipping of British convicts to the penal colonies in Australia: “People would say, ‘Let them go. I don’t want to see them again.’ ” Between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, nearly one and a half million Igbo slaves were sent across the Middle Passage. . . .
Nwaubani Ogogo was so esteemed that, when he died, a leopard was killed, and six slaves were buried alive with him. My family inherited his canvas shoes, which he wore at a time when few Nigerians owned footwear, and the chains of his slaves, which were so heavy that, as a child, my father could hardly lift them. Throughout my upbringing, my relatives gleefully recounted Nwaubani Ogogo’s exploits. When I was about eight, my father took me to see the row of ugba trees where Nwaubani Ogogo kept his slaves chained up. In the nineteen-sixties, a family friend who taught history at a university in the U.K. saw Nwaubani Ogogo’s name mentioned in a textbook about the slave trade. Even my cousins who lived abroad learned that we had made it into the history books.
Interesting reading. I remember that Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon couldn’t find a publisher because it focused too much on the African role in the slave trade. Now Africans are talking about it themselves.
I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS: Flight attendants to be deported over turtle-smuggling operation.
AN IMPORTANT WARNING FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Be careful with your parabolic mirror.
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Sextortion Scammers Threaten to Release Hacked Webcam Video of You Watching Porn.
NFL CONTINUES ITS LARGE IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Former NFL Player Says Politics Will Continue to Haunt the League.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Sex In The City, Nothing. Dating In New York City Is A Hellscape. Though note this: “We all grow up with an idea that New York is the pinnacle of freedom in America. You can go there and do anything, and be anybody you want.”
“We all grow up with an idea that New York is the pinnacle of freedom?” Now who’s being naive, Kay?
MORE LEFTIST POLITICAL VIOLENCE: Mass. Independent Senate Candidate Shiva Ayyadurai Punched In Mouth By Elizabeth Warren Supporter. Why are Democrats so bigoted against Asians?
SOMETHING IN THE LEDE TO THIS STORY SOUNDS FAMILIAR: Transgender Aussie axe-attacker claims Demonic-possession in court.
ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Denver Post Runs Letter to the Editor Demanding Trump’s Execution.
YOU MAY NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG, BUT THE GLEICHSCHALTUNG IS INTERESTED IN YOU: The New Left Is Coming for You.
The first time that many casual observers learned, for example, of the “controversy” involving Scarlett Johansson having been cast to play a transgender character was when she backed out of the production amid an outcry driven by a loud and engaged minority. We have skipped over the part where the aggrieved are kind enough to explain their grievance to the general public—in this case, why it is suddenly inappropriate for a performer to play a role outside his or her demographic. From software engineers with conservative views about same-sex marriage and gender roles to liberal actors (and those who come to their defense) who find occasion to praise conservatives, those who would deter transgressions against transient liberal dogma are upping the ante. Democrats cannot embrace the Hollywood left, appearing alongside actors at rallies and feeding lines to late-night hosts, and expect to avoid association with its most indelicate elements.
Democrats can take heart in the fact that none of this seems likely to overtake their advantages ahead of Donald Trump’s first midterm election. Voters hate one-party government, and they appear set to punish the GOP even though they are voting for a party they admit has lost touch with mainstream America. That’s cold comfort. A Democratic wave in November will propel to Congress a new cast of liberals who are beholden to ideological rigidity and constituencies that will punish aisle-crossing. Those who lament the decline of civil discourse and compromise in Washington haven’t seen anything yet.
Related: The Public Humiliation Diet.
(Classical reference in headline.)
GOOD: Antibodies from Ebola survivors may protect animals from virus. “Two types of antibodies from the blood of Ebola survivors protected animals against strains of the virus that cause deadly infections in people, researchers report. It may be possible to use these antibodies to create a treatment for Ebola, the researchers said.”
GOOD LORD: Democrats Prove Willing To Make Orphans Casualties In Their War Against Religion. “Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee made it clear: they would rather see children suffer than tolerate the existence of faith-based adoption and foster-care providers.”
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: The Future Of Cannabis Has Arrived With This $400 Vaporizer.
NAFTA NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE: Mexico’s chief negotiator, Jesus Seade, says a new deal is “inevitable.”
“What I see … to be a very feasible expectation is that we’ll be concluding the negotiation in the next two months if possible, or in the next few months a bit further down the road,” Seade told Mexican radio.
More from Mr. Seade:
“President Trump has a very personal style. He likes to appear chaotic. But the last thing he is is chaotic,” he said. “I think he’s a very intelligent man.”
Seade once served as deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization.
YOU DON’T NEED A MEMORY WHEN YOU’RE ASSIMILATED INTO THE HIVEMIND: Smartphones are killing teenagers’ memories, study says.
Related: Social Media As Social Disease.