Archive for 2018
April 2, 2018
FEEL-GOOD ITEM OF THE DAY: Jimmy Buffett Presented Navy’s Top Civilian Award.
JUNK SCIENCE: All the Lies Fit to Print: The NYTimes supports EPA secret science. “The New York Times editorialized against EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s move to end secret science at the EPA. Here’s the line-by-line takedown of the Times’ lies.”
AT AMAZON, Spring Deals on Women’s Lingerie.
SMASH ALL THE STATUES! AIRBRUSH ALL THE HISTORY! Michael Graham: It turns out the crazy rednecks were right! ALL history has to come down.
Unexpectedly.
And if you missed yesterday: “‘Is there a difference between honoring McKinley and Robert E. Lee?’ the mayor [of Arcata, CA], Sofia Pereira, who was part the majority, said in a recent interview. ‘They both represent historical pain.’”
ANDREW SULLIVAN: Denying Genetics Isn’t Shutting Down Racism, It’s Fueling It.
Last weekend, a rather seismic op-ed appeared in the New York Times, and it was for a while one of the most popular pieces in the newspaper. It’s by David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard, who carefully advanced the case that there are genetic variations between subpopulations of humans, that these are caused, as in every other species, by natural selection, and that some of these variations are not entirely superficial and do indeed overlap with our idea of race. This argument should not be so controversial — every species is subject to these variations — and yet it is. For many on the academic and journalistic left, genetics are deemed largely irrelevant when it comes to humans. Our large brains and the societies we have constructed with them, many argue, swamp almost all genetic influences.
Humans, in this view, are the only species on Earth largely unaffected by recent (or ancient) evolution, the only species where, for example, the natural division of labor between male and female has no salience at all, the only species, in fact, where natural variations are almost entirely social constructions, subject to reinvention. We are, in this worldview, alone on the planet, born as blank slates, to be written on solely by culture. All differences between men and women are a function of this social effect; as are all differences between the races. If, in the aggregate, any differences in outcome between groups emerge, it is entirely because of oppression, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc. And it is a matter of great urgency that we use whatever power we have to combat these inequalities.
Reich simply points out that this utopian fiction is in danger of collapse because it is not true and because genetic research is increasingly proving it untrue.
“Party of Science.”
POLITICKING: Democratic Hopeful for Ohio Governor Hopes Pro-Life Stance is the Ticket. “If this works for O’Neill and he wins the May gubernatorial primary, Ohio Democrats are afraid he’ll wreck the party’s chances in November.”
Diversity of thought is unwelcome in today’s Democratic Party.
IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT (CON’T): CNN mocked for glorifying JFKs ‘legendary’ infidelity after harping on sex allegations against Trump.
ALLIES: Turkey says France could become ‘target’ for backing Syria Kurds.
Turkey said on Friday that a French pledge to help stabilize a region of northern Syria controlled by Kurdish-dominated forces amounted to support for terrorism and could make France a “target of Turkey”.
French backing for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, has angered Ankara at a time when it is fighting the YPG in northern Syria and considers it a terrorist organization.
President Tayyip Erdogan said France had taken a “completely wrong approach” on Syria, adding that he exchanged heated words with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, last week.
The split with France is the latest rift between Turkey under Erdogan and its NATO allies in the West.
Erdogan has accomplished in just a few years what the Soviets couldn’t manage to do over decades: Pull the rug out from under NATO’s southern tier.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: ‘America’s Never Been Great’: Student Records Her Teacher’s Anti-Trump Rant. “Huntsman said the incident happened at the same high school where another teacher requested students write letters to their lawmakers demanding gun control.”
AN UTTERLY PREDICTABLE CATASTROPHE: A debt crisis is on the horizon.
President Trump’s recently released budget is a wake-up call. It projects that this year, a year of relatively strong economic growth, low unemployment and continued historically low interest rates, the deficit will reach $870 billion, 30 percent greater than last year.
For years, economists have warned of major increases in future public debt burdens. That future is on our doorstep. From this point forward, even if economic growth continues uninterrupted, current tax and spending patterns imply that annual deficits will steadily increase, approaching the $1 trillion mark in two years and steadily rising thereafter as far as the eye can see.
Unless Congress acts to reduce federal budget deficits, the outstanding public debt will reach $20 trillion a scant five years from now, up from its current level of $15 trillion. That amounts to almost a quarter of million dollars for a family of four, more than twice the median household wealth.
This string of perpetually rising trillion-dollar-plus deficits is unprecedented in U.S. history.
Anything which can’t go on forever will stop.
MEDIA GO NUTS AFTER SINCLAIR LOCAL HOSTS ALL READ ANTI-FAKE NEWS MESSAGE. Here’s Why That’s Ridiculous:
There are companies that have tried to cram down particular viewpoints on hosts. That’s awful. But this isn’t that. Again, this message is utterly anodyne. The leftist media’s universal rush to condemn Sinclair for the message is actually more lockstep political than Sinclair’s message, which is lockstep but not political. Kimmel’s tweet is actually more telling than it looks: all the statements about Sinclair being “dangerous for our democracy” are just as collectivized and unanimous, and far more political, than Sinclair’s top-down edict to read an apolitical message on air.
Read the whole thing.
Related:
The big four broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, have around 200 affiliates each, but they’re pikers compared to CNN’s Newsource, which goes out to more than 800 stations across the country. That wide distribution practically guarantees a story will get decent play. The Newsource story about e-mail aired on at least 225 stations, according to Matthew Koll, chairman of the software company that was featured.
Like the networks, CNN makes it easy for local stations to run these stories by providing scripted introductions for local anchors to read. And read them they do, even when they don’t make much sense.
“The final days of a campaign can get a little salty,” parroted one anchor after another in November, whatever that was supposed to mean. The line provided by Newsource set up a story about election-themed drinks and food, and it earned a dozen local anchors a starring role in another Conan montage.
—“What’s wrong with local TV news?,” NewsLab, April 15, 2013.
As Stephen Miller tweets today, “Journalists took such a hardcore deep 8 year nap that they are just now waking up to pioneer cutting edge journalism of.. *Checks notes* … Conan O’Brian.”
From five years ago.
BEN RHODES SAID JOURNALISTS ARE 27-YEAR-OLDS WHO LITERALLY KNOW NOTHING. What Happens When You Fire All Your Copy Editors. “The Long View column on March 18 misstated the circumstances surrounding the Trojan horse in Greek legend. It was the Trojans who allowed the horse within the gates; it was not the Greeks, whose soldiers were inside the horse.”
JONATHAN TURLEY: The curious case of Andrew McCabe’s legal defense fund.
The Justice Department recently indicted four “fraudsters” in New York who raised more than $125,000 through a bogus “wounded warrior” charity to benefit themselves rather than to help veterans. It is a recurring problem for people who watch those constant commercials showing trembling dogs in wire cages or heartbreaking kids with cleft lips. Most charities fund legitimate, desperately needed programs but often are harmed by an unscrupulous few.
One recent campaign has attracted huge donations based on dubious claims – and it comes from within the Justice Department itself. The cause is Andrew McCabe, and both the timing and the pitch are strikingly premature. Former FBI Deputy Director McCabe’s GoFundMe page for a “legal defense fund” appeared after he was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Originally asking for only $150,000, the campaign continued to adjust its goal upward and, in a matter of a few days, surpassed half a million dollars. That is equivalent to more than a decade of McCabe’s expected pension. . . .
It was curious to many that McCabe would so quickly embrace a GoFundMe site before he was “referred” for criminal investigation, let alone charged with any crime. (The inspector general could refer his case for possible criminal charges but, historically, Justice Department officials have avoided such referrals.) However, McCabe clearly did not want to wait for the release of the inspector general report on his conduct before soliciting donations.
In fact, a member of Congress has indicated that McCabe was accused of lying not once but four times about leaking information to the media on the Clinton investigation: lying to FBI Director James Comey, lying to the office of professional responsibility, and lying twice under oath to the inspector general. That is hardly the stuff for a late-night pitch for just a $19.95 monthly donation to support a self-wounded FBI man.
What also is striking is that McCabe has used the same defense as Michael Flynn, who took a plea for a single false statement to investigators. Flynn, however, was given the choice between a plea and prison. There was no pension involved.
The Deep State takes care of its own. And I’d like to see who’s donated to that GoFundMe.
SUCKS WHEN INNOCENT PEOPLE LOSE RIGHTS BECAUSE OF ONE BAD ACTOR, RIGHT? They led a national march. Now Parkland students return to a school they say ‘feels like jail.’
WHEN TAX LAW MEETS COUNTRY MUSIC: A charming tale from Paul Caron.
GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY IS A MADE-UP DOCTRINE, THE PRODUCT OF JUDICIAL ACTIVISM, AND IS WHOLLY ILLEGITIMATE AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Supreme Court shields a police officer from being sued for shooting a woman in her front yard.
HIT & RUN: Sheriff’s vehicle hits protester at Stephon Clark vigil.
A Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy struck a protester with his patrol SUV as she and others gathered in the street to denounce the killing of Stephon Clark, then left the scene, according to video of the incident.
The incident Saturday night threatens to exacerbate an already tense relationship between police and protesters in California’s capital. Observers say the deputy struck the woman at a high rate speed of speed, while authorities say the vehicle was moving slowly and the deputy was responding to a dangerous situation created by some of the demonstrators.
During a vigil, a woman carrying a “Stephon Clark Rest in Power” sign walked in front of a sheriff’s vehicle and motioned the driver to stop, according to a video from the National Lawyers Guild Legal Observers. The deputy then drove away, said Guy Danilowitz, a legal observer who recorded the video.
“The vehicle accelerated and struck her, accelerated very fast and struck her violently and she fell to the ground,” Danilowitz said. “It was a very fast acceleration, not the way you would move with people around.”
The woman suffered only minor injuries, but in the video the SUV did seem to suddenly accelerate while the woman was directly in front of it.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Social media firms want us addicted to approval. So much for WiFi making us smarter.
SENATOR MIKE LEE: Federal Government Has ‘Done Substantial Harm’ Making Opioid Crisis Worse.
“We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
THE SPECIAL PRIVILEGE OF BEING A DEMOCRAT PARTY OPERATIVE WITH A TV SHOW: The Words of Bill Maher…