LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Low-cost prosthetic foot mimics natural walking.
Archive for 2018
July 2, 2018
AT AMAZON: summer savings in Patio, Lawn, and Garden.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON ALL THE COURT-PACKING ENTHUSIASM OF LATE, AND TAKES THINGS A STEP FARTHER: Make the Supreme Court lots bigger. It’s not a priesthood, and it should represent America.
PAGE SIX: BRIAN ROSS IS LEAVING ABC AFTER BOTCHED MICHAEL FLYNN REPORT.
Flashback: “ABC News and correspondent Brian Ross apologized Friday after Ross suggested on air that the Colorado mass shooting suspect could be tied to the Tea Party.”
Beyond those infamous gaffes, as Paul Farhi of the Washington Post wrote in December, “Ross is an investigative reporting star. But he’s made some staggering blunders.”
DON’T GET COCKY, KID: Roger Kimball: The Left Is Slipping into Terminal Irrelevance.
SMOD’S CAMPAIGN TEAM BEGINS GEARING UP FOR 2020 PRESIDENTIAL BID. Meteorite hunters: Scientists search for remains of huge space rock off the Washington coast.
CREDIT CAPITALISM, NOT SOCIALISM: The World’s Poorest People Are Getting Richer Faster. “In 1820, 94% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. In 1990, 34.8%, and in 2015, just 9.6%.” But socialism can reverse that with surprising speed.
THE POLITICS OF SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS: Would Amul Thakar make the most sense from the standpoint of politics? John Fund makes the case.
EVERGREEN HEADLINE: Progressivism is wrecking cities in the Pacific Northwest.
The anarchy and disorder dominating progressive cities across the West Coast recently hit a new low in Seattle. King County officials are looking to roll out a “safe injection van,” a legal venue at which addicts could shoot up illegal drugs unhindered and “safely.” The first of its kind in the United States, the van would manage to undermine further the rule of law while also doing little to help addicts. Seattle’s urban decay goes deeper, though, with skyrocketing rates of homelessness, an explosion in opioid usage and deaths, and spikes in violent crime.
But it’s all good now: Seattle bans plastic straws, utensils, becoming first major US city to do so.
As Iowahawk tweets, “Feel free to drop your feces and used needles on the sidewalk though.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to write a Vice.com article.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN FACES LIFE IN PRISON ON NEW CHARGES.
Weinstein was charged on Monday with three more counts of felony sexual assault.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office announced Monday that a grand jury has charged the once-powerful Hollywood producer with a criminal sexual act in the first degree for forcing sex on a third woman in 2006, as well as two counts of predatory sex assault.
Weinstein has already pleaded not guilty to a New York grand jury’s three May charges of rape and a criminal sex act involving two women. If convicted on the new charges, he would face from ten years to life in prison.
If he is convicted, will any of the actors who appeared in his movies and PSAs such as this or the politicians who took his money be asked for comment on their silence?*
As Paul Rahe wrote last December, our imperial elites have been unmasked:
I quote Caitlin Flanagan at inordinate length for a reason. What she says about Hillary Clinton can be applied to virtually every woman (and man) who has been at work in the last couple of decades within our imperial liberal elite – whether it be in Hollywood, in journalism, or on the Hill.
Meryl Streep, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and the other members of the sisterhood have turned their backs on Harvey Weinstein, Mark Halperin, Charlie Rose, John Conyers, Al Franken, Glenn Thrush, Matt Lauer, and the like. They say that they didn’t know or that, at most, they had heard a rumor or two. They are for the most part lying. Nearly all of them knew, as did Gloria Steinem and the liberals who defended Bill Clinton. The scale and the scope of these men’s misconduct were too large to have been anything other than an open secret.
Moreover, those who knew were all complicit. Meryl Streep is a case in point. She did not give a damn about the antics of Harvey Weinstein. She was a public defender of Roman Polanski, whose taste as a rapist ran to underage girls. He was, after all, an artiste – a man beyond good and evil.
If you doubt my claim that nearly everyone in our imperial elite was complicit, read Fox News’ report regarding the Friars Club dinner given in honor of Matt Lauer nine years ago. Everyone who was anyone in New York media circles was there, and the roast to which Lauer was subjected was a celebration of his . . . er . . . “accomplishments” with the women with whom he came into contact while doing his job as a journalist. I would quote snatches of what they said in their speeches were they not too graphic to pass the Ricochet Code of Conduct. In any case, you can read it for yourself, and you can read the account published in The Village Voice back in 2008 on which it was based.
When you next see any one of these people engaged in moral posturing, pinch yourself and remind yourself that they are all – especially, the politicians – in show business.
“You know the old joke about Washington: That it’s Hollywood for ugly people,” Lee Smith wrote in October when the Weinstein story first broke, in a powerful article titled, “The Human Stain: Why the Harvey Weinstein Story Is Worse Than You Think.” “But it turns out that the joke works in the opposite direction: Hollywood is for ugly people, too. That was Harvey Weinstein’s essential insight, and how he managed to combine the worlds of politics, entertainment, and media. They’re all repulsive—and I know they’re disgusting or else they wouldn’t be courting, of all people, me.”
Why are leftwing-dominated industries such cesspits of sexual abuse and exploitation?
* Of course, that was purely a rhetorical question:
LAW & ORDER, SPECIAL VIRUS UNIT: The DNA Cops Who Make Sure The World’s Deadliest Viruses Aren’t Rebuilt.
ROBERT SPENCER: A Muslim Professor Rewrites History. “He wants more Muslims in the West, so he whitewashes Muslim Spain.”
ACTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOR #FAKENEWS: Brian Ross is leaving ABC after botched Michael Flynn report.
ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A MEMBER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? Democrats Are Increasingly Comfortable With Religious Tests.
As another religion with its headquarters in Italy liked to say, “Tutto all’interno dello stato, niente fuori dallo stato, nulla contro lo stato.”
AMELIA HAMILTON INTRODUCES her Growing Patriots podcast. “In the first episode, I’m joined by 5 year-old Jack as we discuss the very first voyage to Jamestown with Ann Price-Hardister of the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation.”
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, but her Growing Patriot’s Guide to the American Revolution was a hit with my younger son when he was at the right age for it.
IF FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED: A few days ago, the Commission voted to re-open its investigation into conditions at immigration detention facilities. As I pointed out in my Dissenting Statement, the original report failed to uncover the “egregious human rights and constitutional violations” that the then-Chairman of the Commission predicted. The Commission will keep trying …
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why Jimmy Fallon Betrayed Personal Pledge, Joined the Resistance. “The ‘Tonight Show’ host once eschewed Trump bashing but cultural pressure changed his mind.”
PRIME MINISTER ZOOLANDER: Canada PM Justin Trudeau denies groping allegation. “If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”
SCENES FROM SADIQ KHAN’S LONDON: ‘Tourism industry could SUFFER if stabbing epidemic continues.’
Ya think?
WOULD YOU TRUST EITHER OF THESE DEM SENS WITH OUR COUNTRY? On the one hand, there is New York’s Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby introduces her to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Between the two Gillibrands, you have the two poles on the ICE issue – she was for it before she is now against it.
Then there’s Illinois’ Sen. Richard Durbin who calls ICE “a bunch of incompetents.” When LifeZette’s Connor Wolf called Durbin to ask if he means the whole 20,000+ ICE workforce or just a select few, his spokesman declined to say.
Trump has one of the key characteristics of successful politicos — opponents who make him look better.
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