Archive for 2018
September 12, 2018
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Leftists Promise To Bring You The Past.
Any directed tour depends on prior knowledge of the scenery so it can be introduced as it comes into view. A guided tour into the unknown is impossible by definition. What has kept pundits from accurately predicting what comes next in these years of turmoil is they were surprised by developments like everyone else.
The result is that the Narrative is now burdened by a tremendous accumulation of events whose significance no one can quite understand. The liberal response to this jumble of mysteries has been less to explain it than seek a way to return to familiar ground. They want to go back to the old story. Reports that anonymous officials in the White House are waiting to topple the president via the 25th Amendment or arguments that no one appointed to the Supreme Court can be validly confirmed periodically raise hopes that some shortcut to their Trump nightmare may yet be at hand.
But the idealized past continues to fade under each new initiative of this astonishing administration. The cancellation of the Paris accord, the end of the Iran nuclear deal, the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem, the rejection of the PLO, the renegotiation of trade agreements, tariffs on China, a new strategic alliance with India, the formation of a Space Force, rapproachment with North Korea, the rejection of the International Criminal Court and a set of sanctions against Russia, Turkey, Iran are but a few of the demolition charges detonating against the face of the global world order.
Nor is Trump the only termite in the building. Europe appears to be unaccountably in the midst of what the media vaguely describes as a drift to the ‘extreme right’. Even Sweden, long the iconic ‘moral superpower’ of the left, is developing a distinct right-wing list. So far the liberal analysis of this growing challenge has been to treat it like an aberration. Their strategy for getting things ‘back to normal’ has focused less on adapting their political program than concentrating on breaking the momentum of the populist uprising.
Apparently the expectation is if the populist tide can be stopped at America’s 2018 election, as Hitler’s panzers stalled before Stalingrad, it will of its own accord subside into the sewers of bigotry and flow back into the septic tank of history. The trouble is this model repeatedly failed to work in Europe as shown by this BBC graphic. Time and again the expected ebb never came. But the 2018 elections are so important that this time, if the mighty liberal establishment proves unable to effect a pivot, it may finally be forced to admit that something has really changed.
Yep. If you’re a Democrat, you should vote Republican this time, just to wake them up.
REMINDER: Don’t Be Fooled, There Was Nothing ‘Financial’ About the 2008 Crisis.
Lehman’s bankruptcy didn’t cause a “crisis” as much as the Bush administration’s foolish decision to bail out Bear Stearns months before created the perception in the marketplace that Lehman would be saved too. As such, investors weren’t prepared for the correct decision to let Lehman go. Put simply, Lehman was only earth-shaking insofar as prior government intervention turned what was healthy into a surprise. And having erred mightily in bailing out Bear, the Bush administration chose to make a bad situation much worse.
Indeed, in conjunction with the SEC it banned short-selling on 900 different financial stocks. Talk about pouring gasoline onto the fire. Seemingly missed by Administration officials is that short sellers are ultimately buyers. When short sellers are able to express their pessimism in the marketplace, a huge reserve of buying power is created when we remember that shorts can only take profits insofar as they buy back the shares sold short. Yet when the markets needed them most as both price givers and liquidity providers, the Bushies banned them.
After that, bailouts are not free. Governments don’t mis-allocate the money of others only to walk away. They offer up the money of others only to demand a more muscular role in how the saved operate. Ok, but the 20th century was a monument to the failure of central planning. Is it any wonder that future-seeing investors looked negatively on a return of excessive government intervention in commerce?
What can’t be stressed enough about what happened in 2008 is that for economies to grow and markets to rise, it’s necessary that the mediocre and lousy constantly be replaced by the good and brilliant.
No. More. Bailouts.
“WITHOUT EVIDENCE.” EXCEPT, YOU KNOW, FOR THE . . . TEXTS.
BURN THE HERETIC: ‘I’m Not For That Third Gender Sh*t’; NY Democrat Accused of Using Transphobic Slur.
New York State senator Jesse Hamilton, a Democrat, is under fire after be accused of making anti-transgender comments to a constituent while campaigning for re-election in South Brooklyn on Tuesday morning. His staff says he was misinterpreted.
According to a post by Alejandra Caraballo in the closed Facebook group “Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Brooklyn Neighbors,” Hamilton was pressed about his support for the LGBTQ community. In response, Hamilton allegedly said, “I’m not for that third gender shit.”
Caraballo described how the situation unfolded. In her post, she wrote:
I ran into state senator Jesse Hamilton who was campaigning this morning in front of the Winthrop 2/5 stop. I asked him about GENDA (gender expression non discrimination act) and he tried to say he’s pro-LGBTQ and then literally says to me, “I’m not for that 3rd gender shit.” That just confirmed my vote for Zellnor Myrie.
In later comments, Caraballo was asked whether those were Hamilton’s actual words. She said, “Yes, those were his actual words. He tried attacking Zellnor as not supportive of the LGBTQ community and then casually dropped that line.”
Hamilton is black, so what happens next will be a real test of the Left’s emerging new victimhood pecking order.
WHY ARE FAMOUS LEFTISTS SO FULL OF THEMSELVES AND SO MEAN TO THE LITTLE PEOPLE? When Professors Think They’re Rock Stars. “There is a whole dissertation to be written on intellectuals using the word neoliberal to mean ‘rules I shouldn’t have to follow.’”
Plus: “Just as in the communist and socialist regimes that academics so admire, the universities all have an elite class at the top (permanently installed thanks to tenure), while the masses scurry around trying their best not to upset the rulers, lest they lose their livelihood. Maybe capitalist bosses are pigs too, but at least one isn’t subject to their moral preening as well as their abusive behavior.”
THE FIX WAS IN: Google Was “Working To Get Hillary Clinton Elected” With “Silent Donation” According To Leaked Internal Email.
Tucker Carlson just blew the cover off the 2016 election influence charade, after he read an internal email on Monday night’s show from a senior Google employee who admitted to using company resources to make a “silent donation” to a liberal group that was creating ads and donating funds to bus Latinos to voting stations during the 2016 election in key swing states, in an effort to help Hillary Clinton win.
“That email was subsequently forwarded by two Google VP’s to more staff members throughout the company,” says Carlson, adding “In her email, Mario touts Google’s multi-faceted efforts to boost Hispanic turnout in the election. She noticed that Latino voters did record-breaking numbers, especially in states like Florida, Nevada and Arizona – the last of which she describes as “a key state for us.” She brags that the company used its power to ensure that millions of people saw certain hashtags and social media impressions, with the goal of influencing their behavior during the election.”
Over to you, Jeff Sessions.
SIX FACTS SAY PAPADOPOULOS IS RIGHT TO THINK HE WAS SET-UP: George Papadopoulos now thinks it was no coincidence that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer just happened to be in that London bar where the former Trump campaign volunteer had a few too many in 2016. LifeZette readers, among others, have known that for a long time, George. Or he could just have asked Hillary.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Penn State math course covers ‘imperialism’ and ‘cultural intolerance.’
The professor begins with a positive review of Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in section two of the midterm, entitled “Red Party Politics Shifts and Cracks,” before asking students to analyze voting statistics between male and female voters during the 2008 presidential election.
“The emergence of the Tea Party played a central role in the 2008 U.S. presidential election,” [the Tea Party emerged in 2009 in response to Obama’s stimulus bill -Steve] the document reads. “The victor was Barack Obama who, like Bill Clinton, served as U.S. president for 8 years – the two men guided always by the strength of character and force of intellect of First Lady Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.”
[Professor Marc] Fabbri is slated to teach three sections of the course this fall.
Penn State spokesman L. Reidar Jensen told Campus Reform that the school is “aware” of the exam materials and is “in the process of looking into this situation further.”
While Jensen referenced the professor’s right to academic freedom, he noted that the university seeks to “encourage any student who believes that an instructor has acted beyond the limits of academic freedom to consult the policies and procedures in place for seeking a faculty conference and mediation.”
Is Fabbri teaching any actual math to his students?
MAYBE MY SCHOOLTEACHER GRANDMOTHER WASN’T SO STUPID AFTER ALL: A Georgia charter school is seeking parental permission to using paddling as a punishment for schoolchildren. And many parents are granting it.
School discipline has changed since the 1970s, when, as a result of a number of public interest lawsuits, it became legally risky to keep students after school without explicit parental permission. This pleased teachers, who weren’t keen on working late with unruly students anyway.
Instead, in-school or more commonly out-of-schools suspensions became the norm. Two problems: First, suspended students lose instructional time. Second, many of them like to be suspended.
What’s really needed is a punishment that is quick and unpleasant, thus allowing misbehaving students to get right back to their studies—like an old-fashioned paddling.
In the meantime, whether it works out or not, I’m happy to see a school attempt to set it own discipline policy. The federal government has managed to impose its preferred discipline policy on most of the rest of them.
BATTLE OF VIENNA: Good morning, Instapundit readers. It’s September 12th, the 335th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna. That day in 1683 was a turning point in history with the forces of the Habsburg imperial monarchy, the Holy Roman Empire’s principalities, and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, combining to stop the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into Europe. John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, was their military leader.
Vienna, which had been under siege since July, was near collapse. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I had fled and was now begging for help from the rest of the Empire, from Poland-Lithuania and from France. Poland as well as Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and some other HRE principalities answered the call. (France’s Louis XIV said no, and the Lithuanians, though willing, arrived too late for the battle.)
Sobieski personally led the 18,000-man cavalry charge that scattered the Ottomans. This was the beginning of a long end for the Ottoman Empire. After the battle, Sobieski gave credit to both the High and the low, “Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vicit” (“We came, We saw, God conquered”).
Here’s my question: Why isn’t John III Sobieski more famous in the USA? The last person to mention his name to me was Mr. Newlove, my 12th grade European history teacher.
NO GUNS AT SAN DIEGO COUNTY’S MOST POPULAR GUN SHOWS?: According the San Diego Union Tribune, the Del Mar Fairgrounds Board of Directors voted 8 to1 to suspend the popular gun shows until a “policy is developed that could include a complete ban on the possession of any firearms or ammunition.…”
“We’re not doing our kids any service if we continue this,” said Director Lisa Barkett, before voting for the suspension….
“Essentially, it’s a ban of the gun show,” said Wendy Hauffen, executive administrator of the San Diego County Gun Owners, after the decision. “You can’t have gun show with no guns.”
Next for Del Mar Fairgrounds: No horses at the horse races.
September 11, 2018
OPEN THREAD: Make it march.
AS A LEGENDARY COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ADVISES HIS CONSTITUENTS, PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Newspaper doubles down with front page response to Serena Williams cartoon critics.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The WaPo called this cartoon racist, but where were they for this? “Jeff Danziger, whose cartoons are syndicated in The New York Times, had a caricature of ‘a big-lipped, barely literate Condoleezza Rice, nursing the aluminum tubes cited by the White House as evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.’” Then there’s Ted Rall, who called Condi Rice President Bush’s “house nigga.”
But that’s different. Condi’s a Republican, after all.
IT’S GOOD FOR EVERYTHING EXCEPT ACTUALLY FIGHTING: Using Tai Chi to Build Strength: Tai chi moves can be easily learned and executed by people of all ages and states of health, even elderly people in wheelchairs.
WHERE DID ALL THE UNITY GO? 17 years ago we came together as one. Today would that still be allowed?
The annual approach of 9/11/01 brought memories, news recaps, and best of all, in some ways, speculation. As in, what’s the matter with Americans today? Where’s now the national unity that marked the aftermath of the attacks; the U.S. flags that decorated pickups and sedans; the spirit of we’re-all-in-this-together?
Umm, yes. Where, in fact, had that unity gone by the time the victory over Iraq had sucked Americans into a guerrilla war and America’s commander-in-chief in that war was being castigated right and left?
I have a suggestion. It is that in 2001, under attack by — I do not think it is too much to say — the powers of darkness, Americans found and asserted their American identity. It took some effort. Vietnam, Watergate, and the Clinton years had produced deep national divisions. The 2000 presidential election had dug them deeper still.
Nevertheless, enough national spirit remained to further and facilitate the coming together of the American tribe, the American family in the interest of punishing suitably the murderous foes of that family. We all suddenly embraced one another. We were in this thing together. God bless the U.S.A.
I have a much more cynical view, unfortunately: On the eve of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal noted that for the far left, losing the Gore-Bush recount fight in November of 2000 was in many ways, a more traumatic experience than the horrors to come the following year. But the magnitude of 9/11 required a rare interregnum (with notable exceptions) in the culture war from the left. By the middle of 2004, it would lead to what the late Charles Krauthammer dubbed “the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release,” in August of that year:
The Democrats fell unnaturally silent. For two long, agonizing years, they had to stifle and suppress. It was the most serious case of repression since Freud’s Anna O. went limp. The forced deference nearly killed them. And then, providentially, they were saved. The clouds parted and bad news rained down like manna: WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Richard Clarke, Paul O’Neill, Joe Wilson and, most important, continued fighting in Iraq.
With the president stripped of his halo, his ratings went down. The spell was broken. He was finally, once again, human and vulnerable. With immense relief, the critics let loose.
The result has been volcanic. The subject of one prominent new novel is whether George W. Bush should be assassinated. This is all quite unhinged. Good God. What if Bush is reelected? If they lose to him again, Democrats will need more than just consolation. They’ll need therapy.
Krauthammer’s 2004 column is remarkably timely, alas. While Trump’s eccentricities no doubt exacerbate the craziness of the left, even if another, much more courtly Republican were president, simply having that (R) after his name would be enough to ensure that he’d face virtually the same level of anger and fury from the reactionary far left.
WHY ARE DEMOCRATS SO VIOLENT? California Man Arrested After Trying to Stab GOP Candidate, Police Say:
California man Farzad Fazeli was arrested Tuesday for allegedly trying to stab a congressional candidate at a fair on Sunday, police said.
Local media identified the candidate as Republican Rudy Peters, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell in November.
Peters survived serious injury thanks to a malfunctioning switchblade, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday. The attempted stabbing was preceded by Fazeli making “disparaging remarks” about the Republican Party, according to the sheriff’s office.
Meanwhile, in DC: ‘I am coming with a gun’: Twitter rando threatens to collect ‘bloodstained MAGA hats’ at Trump hotel meet-up.
Related: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) Jokes About Threatening Trump Supporters ‘All The Time.’
I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Cave features suggest stable sea levels during last interglacial period.
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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More than 1 in 5 college students so stressed they considered suicide.