REVIEW: 2018 Mercedes-AMG S65 Sedan.
Archive for 2018
April 3, 2018
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MICHAEL MCCONNELL: Dressmakers, Bakers, and the Equality of Rights.
Well, that’s one way of angling for a sweet gig at NBC.
MY STATE SECESSION PAPER is still #1 on SSRN. Thanks to everyone who downloaded!
WEST SIDE INTERSECTIONALITY STORY: “The Left’s favorite playwright, Tony Kushner, is in a bind,” Ben Shapiro writes:
Kushner, you’ll recall, is the author of such politically radical travesties as Angels in America and Munich — and the author of far more mature works, such as Lincoln and Fences. Kushner is the type of fellow who says: “The founding of the State of Israel was for the Jewish people a historical, moral, political calamity. . . . I wish modern Israel hadn’t been born.” But he still likes to stand on his Jewish ethnicity as a crutch for his leftism. He’s an anti-capitalism radical who has earned millions of dollars and summers in a Provincetown vacation home.
And now, Kushner has a problem.
His problem: He’s a Jewish gay guy remaking West Side Story — a musical about Polish and Puerto Rican gangs, originally written by four Jews. This violates the core tenet of intersectionality, which maintains that it’s cultural appropriation when people of one culture write about another culture, and that it’s “white privilege” when too many members of “white America” (which now includes Jews) earn money on a particular endeavor. Kushner declares himself a “big believer in identity politics and political correctness.”
So how will he square this circle?
By tap dancing faster and much more artfully around his fellow leftists’ faddish intersectionality obsession than any of the choreography that will be in the film. Read the whole thing.
NEVER GO OUTSIDE THE FAMILY: Hamza bin Laden Vows to ‘Redistribute the Riches’ of Saudi Arabia to Poor in Call for Uprising.
That’s a pretty pathetic attempt at unseating Crown Prince Salman.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: George Washington University event aims to combat ‘Christian Privilege.’
Over at the Small Dead Animals blog, “Visit The Washington Monument While You Still Can” is a recurring headline. Similarly, as the left’s great airbrushing of history continues apace, how long before George Washington University changes its own name to a more modern, PC-approved (lesser) historic figure?
WOMEN CAN DO ANYTHING MEN CAN DO, EXCEPT COMPETE WITH MEN: No men allowed: UVM hosts women-only debate championship.
IT ISN’T ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY: Yes, Andrea Mitchell. We see the ‘pattern.’ Trump is doing the same things as Obama yet the MSM only freaks out about Trump.
LIZ PEEK: The infuriating invisibility of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Where is Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg? The alleged “adult in the room” has been nearly missing in action since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke on March 17.
To date she has offered up only one measly post, which echoed CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s explanation of what went wrong, and one interview on CNBC.
For a woman known as a great communicator, not to mention the company’s critical No. 2 in command, credited with building the very advertising model that has got Facebook in hot water, Sandberg’s reticence is not only mystifying but also inexcusable.
It was former Google CEO Eric Schmidt who dismissed privacy concerns with a blithe, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Back in 2009, Schmidt’s statement was creepy and offensive. But now that the big networking firms are the ones being exposed, it’s full of schadenfreudeliciousness.
CHANGE: 4 groups that are warming up to Donald Trump.
Here are four subgroups among which Trump performed significantly better in March than he did in February:
Men. Trump was at 50% approval in March as compared to 42% approval in February.
Young voters. In February, just 1 in 5 voters aged 18-34 approved of how Trump was handling the job. In March, that number increased to 30%
Middle-aged voters. Trump’s gains among the young(ish) were one-upped by his showing among those between 35 and 49 years old, where he gained 9 points in approval in a month.
College graduates: A group that has long been resistant to Trump had the biggest change of heart toward him between February and March: A 10-point swing.
Interesting.
JOE PAPPALARDO: Hollywood Has No Idea How Nukes Work.
WHISTLEBLOWER: Anonymous Parkland Faculty Member Claims School Failed To Act on Threat Assessment. “Lives would have been saved.”
ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER:
Found via Gabriel Malor of the Federalist, who tweets, “Er…a non-twitter pal notes that WaPo has literal communist propaganda today.”
RICHARD EPSTEIN: John Paul Stevens’ Gun Problem.
So what is this fight about anyhow? Justice Stevens would like to impose regulations that raise the age of gun ownership from 18 to 21; he would like more “comprehensive” background checks before issuing permits; and he would like to outlaw bump stocks. But how many lives would these and similar measures save? It goes largely unnoticed that the rate of gun deaths in the United States since 1993 has fallen by about one half, even as the number of guns has increased. Between 2012 and 2016, on average 35,141 people died from gun violence each year. Homicides accounted for 12,726 deaths, or less than 40 percent of the total, while suicides accounted for 21,637, or over 60 percent of the total. During this period, the number of guns in the country rose by 50 percent. At the same time, the population rose from around 260 million to around 316 million in 2013, or about 17.6 percent. Suicide rates have declined only slightly over that same period. It is hard to imagine how any gun control law could tamp down on the number of gun suicides.
As to gun violence against other persons, rifles and shot guns contribute to only a small fraction of the killings—770 in 2016 compared to 7,105 by handguns and 3,077 by other kinds of guns. Knives were used in 1,604 killings as well. Death from mass killings have, as should be expected, fluctuated wildly over the past 30-plus years. In over half of those years, the total has been under 20 deaths per year. The highest years were 2013 at 70 and 2016 at 60. In the worst years, therefore, these horrific killings have amounted to only 0.6 percent of the total gun homicides. The popular salience of mass killings is intense. But no one offers any estimate of the lives saved if Stevens’ reforms were put into place. If the desire is to stop gun killings, it is far better to look elsewhere.
Stopping “gun killings” isn’t the desire, it’s the excuse.
YOU’VE HEARD THAT GENERALS ALWAYS PREPARE TO FIGHT THE LAST WAR, BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS: 68% of Indian military equipment is ‘vintage’ say officials.
END THE LEFT-RIGHT STALEMATE ON VOTER RIGHTS? John Fund writes:
All across the political spectrum, there’s agreement that our voting system is broken. Academics lament our low voter turnout. Liberals blame that on obstacles to voting, such as registration laws and ID requirements. Conservatives say our rickety system is vulnerable to bureaucratic incompetence and voter fraud.
It’s time to end this Left–Right stalemate, which caused the Obama Justice Department to spend over $50 million to fight ballot-integrity laws. Various civil-rights groups probably spent an equal or greater amount. What if all that money had gone instead into real efforts to put an ID in people’s hands?
It’s an idea being pushed by Andrew Young and Martin Luther King III.
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA’S SINGLE-VOICED CRITICISM OF SINCLAIR’S ‘FAKE NEWS’ PROMOS:
After Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012, a Rachel Maddow-narrated commercial aired for months spiking the football over his victory. For years, the progressive network ran “Lean Forward” ads espousing messages like children belonging to their communities and Republicans being like thieves stealing blueberry pie.
As we’ve shown for years at the Washington Free Beacon, it’s downright eerie how often the media talkers and anchors seem to service a Democratic Party or liberal message, whether it’s on gun control, Fire and Fury, tax reform, Oprah Winfrey for president, or how Clinton once had the best 10 days ever, just to name a few.
To hear them all in unison again against a message blasting media biases and agendas is too perfect.
Oh no – it gets even better! Get the Popcorn: Dan Rather Loses It Over Sinclair Promising to Be Factual.
According to Rather, it’s “attacking the press” for Sinclair to have their anchors say: “It’s our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand Truth is neither politically ‘left nor right.’ Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever.” And for them to note: “The troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.”
“The faces of the men and women you see delivering this chilling message are befitting those of a hostage video,” Rather bitterly proclaimed. “I suspect that the vast majority of the journalists you see in this video want to be in an environment where they can do their jobs, reporting the news fairly, without favor or bias. They need our support.”
Does Dan Rather even know…he’s Dan Rather?
BLUE WAVE? Republicans should remain calm about 2018.
According to the FiveThirtyEight Generic Ballot, the Democrats’ lead over Republicans is slowly narrowing. Last December, Democrats led Republicans by a 14-point margin (50 percent to 36 percent). As of this week, their lead has shrunk to six points (46 percent to 40 percent). Fox News has the lead at five points, while Quinnipiac University’s pollsters peg it at just four points.
In nautical terms, a four- to six-point advantage is barely a ripple, let alone a “blue wave.” Republicans should take a deep breath and count their blessings in 2018. Despite the prevailing media narrative, there are many of them.
For starters, Republicans continue to outraise Democrats. In February, the Republican National Committee raised nearly $13 million, breaking its previous February fundraising record. The debt-ridden Democratic National Committee raised less $7 million last month, while seeing its total liabilities rise to over $6 million.
In 2017, the RNC raised $130 million — more than twice the DNC’s haul. Much of it came from digital fundraising, as Republicans added more than one million email addresses in the last quarter of 2017 alone. The RNC is also expected to double the small-dollar donation database that raised more than $250 million for President Trump in 2016. The RNC’s counterparts at House and Senate campaign arms are breaking similar fundraising records.
Fundraising remains solid, but conservative sentiment is likely tepid after last month’s budget-busting budget deal.