TEACH WOMEN NOT TO DO ANY OF THIS (CONT’D): Married middle school teacher arrested for having sex with 14-year-old student, buying him drugs.
Archive for 2018
March 2, 2018
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
—Headline, the London Independent, Today.
● Chaser: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.
—Headline, the London Independent, March 20, 2000.
SAYING IT “WON’T WORK” ASSUMES THE PURPOSE IS TO REDUCE CRIME: The assault weapons ban didn’t work. A new version won’t, either.
THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED, WE’D SEE OPEN RACISM. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Texas students launch ‘No Whites Allowed’ magazine.
and THEY TOLD ME IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED, WE’D SEE OPEN RACISM ON THE SENATE FLOOR. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer faced a stern rebuke from congressional colleagues for citing skin color in voting against a white federal judge nominee earlier this week.”
USAF KC-135 TANKER REFUELING SWEDISH JETS: Russian bad behavior in Ukraine has consequences. Swedish Gripens and U.S. F-16s fly in formation below the tanker. The exercise took place in Swedish air space.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: NRA Meets with Trump, ‘Andy’s Office’ Targeted in DOJ Report and Much, Much More.
BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN FINED FOR ILLEGAL COORDINATION WITH FOREIGN ENTITY.
BECAUSE THEY WERE PROTECTING DEMOCRATS? Senator seeks answers on why FBI waited weeks to act on Weiner laptop in Clinton case.
JAMIE METZL: Why We Must Prepare for the Coming Collapse of North Korea.
Because North Korea’s continued nuclear weapons push will justify the U.S. military’s ongoing rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific, the acceleration of missile defenses in South Korea and Japan that will undermine China’s nuclear deterrent, and Japan’s active reconsideration of its military capabilities, China’s need to keep a lid on North Korea’s nuclear program will ultimately conflict with the DPRK’s nuclear drive. Moreover, China will rightly come to perceive the North’s nuclear program as being designed primarily to limit Beijing’s influence over Pyongyang. This will likely prove unacceptable to the Chinese, who will be forced to increase economic pressure on North Korea by reducing aid, making China-DPRK relations decline even more than they have since the 2013 execution of Jang Song-Taek, Kim Jong-Un’s uncle and the then-point person in North Korea-China ties.
Recognizing the potential for reduced Chinese assistance, Pyongyang has begun looking for other financial options. Its longtime friend Russia, relishing these days in poking the West, would be a good choice but for its ongoing financial crisis. South Korea, which once provided significant aid to the North for little in return under former President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy,” will not be fooled again without significant concessions. With few options for aid, economic reform will by default become the North’s only real choice.
In fact, North Korea’s leaders have recently come to this realization and minor economic reforms allowing managers to set wages and farmers to keep more of their harvest have begun. Economic reform, however, cannot work in North Korea without political reform.
Whatever political and military compromises might be necessary to bringing the two Koreas back together (or at least much closer) following a collapse, the financial, logistical, and humanitarian costs are almost unimaginable.
SO MUCH FOR THE NARRATIVE: Report: Parkland Shooter Did Not Use High Capacity Magazines. “The gunman used only 10-round magazines. The Parkland shooter did not use magazines larger than 10 rounds, but gun reform lobbyists are calling on lawmakers to ban higher capacity magazines after the Valentine’s Day tragedy.”
It’s all about opportunism and a pre-existing gun-control agenda. It has nothing to do with the actual events being used as an excuse.
MICHAEL BARONE: Still saddled with the politics of the Seventies.
Not since James Monroe left the presidency in 1825, 48 years after he fought in the Battle of Princeton, has America had political leadership with careers running so far back in the past. Our current government leaders have political pedigrees going back to the 1970s.
Consider the Senate. Democratic leader Chuck Schumer was first elected to the New York Assembly in 1974. Republican leader Mitch McConnell was elected Jefferson County judge — the county administrator for Louisville, Ky. — in 1977.
Consider the House. Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was elected Northern California Democratic Chairman in 1977. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1966 and was elected state Senate president in 1975.
Or how about California’s leading Democrats? Senator Dianne Feinstein was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1970 and became mayor in 1978. Governor Jerry Brown was elected California secretary of state in 1970 and to his first term as governor in 1974.
Technically, President Trump is an exception, never having held public office until 2017. But his public career began in the 1970s, a terrible decade in which New York City’s population fell by 823,000. That’s when Trump refocused his father’s business from the outer boroughs, whose white ethnics were fleeing into Manhattan, where low real estate prices, other people’s money, and political pull enabled him to flourish, in anticipation of an eventual upturn.
It’s when Trump developed his disdain for establishment liberal opinion and penchant for outrageous tabloid-style disparagement thereof. That left him an odd man out in the Reagan/Bush/Clinton high contentment years and a natural fit for post-2007 discontent.
Read the whole thing.
“‘TRY NOT TO GET KILLED,’ A FRIEND WARNED. BUT I WAS GREETED WITH OPEN ARMS.” A Hillary Staffer Goes To CPAC. “Where some saw a circus, I saw a big tent. . . . In retrospect, I’m embarrassed at how nervous I was when I arrived. I found myself singing along to ‘God Bless the USA’ with a hilariously rowdy group of college Republicans, having nuanced discussions about gun control and education policy with people from all walks of life, nodding my head in agreement with parts of Ben Shapiro’s speech, and coming away with a greater determination to burst ideological media bubbles.”
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT: Gold Harvey Weinstein Casting Couch Appears Near Oscars Venue.
“CELEBRATE DIVERSITY” MORPHED INTO “SILO’ED DIVERSITY” SLOWLY I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: A group of students at the University of Texas, San Antonio plans to start publishing a “No Whites Allowed” (NWA) magazine. “White people are welcome to attend the launch party Thursday night, but while their support is ‘appreciated,’ the founders insist that ‘it’s a zine for QPOC and by QPOC [queer persons of color]’.”
REPORT: Andrew McCabe Authorized Media Leaks, Misled Investigators.
The Department of Justice’s internal watchdog will criticize former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for authorizing leaks to the media and giving misleading statements to investigators about doing so, according to two new reports.
McCabe, 49, authorized FBI officials to speak to the media for articles prior to the 2016 election, including one about an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation, according to a report being prepared by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The FBI No. 2 also misled watchdog investigators when they initially asked about the media disclosures, according to The Washington Post.
The New York Times also reported details of Horowitz’s report, which is expected to be released in March or April.
Well, it’s March.
AT AMAZON, still on sale, Philips HeartStart Home Defibrillator.
Plus, Lightning Deal, Mens Wayfarer Polarized Sunglasses.
KYLE SMITH: Virtue-signaling reaches a new extreme in the silly ‘#MenToo’ online petition.
Attention all problematic dudes: Would you like to distance yourself from any sleazy behavior toward women in the past and proudly attach the adjective “former” to your problematic-dude status? The New York Times has the means. Sign an online “affirmative consent pledge.” Swear to the following: “I’m a Man, and I Commit to Making Sure All My Sexual Encounters Are Fully Consensual.”
The man behind this nonbinding, meaningless, and superfluous consent pledge is author Michael Ellsberg, whom the Times is promoting in a splashy, fawning feature, complete with animated graphics (“#MeToo” is transformed into “#MenToo” when a friendly-looking anthropomorphic “N” saunters into the headline, waving at readers) and one of those dramatic portraits that features Ellsberg gazing courageously into a more honest and better future. Presumably Ellsberg’s future will be more gentlemanly than his past, because in the interview he admits to Aziz Ansari–like behavior and acting like the guy in the New Yorker short story “Cat Person” — which is to say, being a major jerk.
Yes, well, Hollywood is trying to reinvent itself with conspicuous virtue-signaling now too: Hollywood Is Suddenly Serious. That’s Exactly What America Needs Right Now.
But if America overall seems to have backslid into a darker age, Hollywood is examining everything in a new, more starkly revealing light. Over the past five months alone, Hollywood has moved quickly to right long-established wrongs and to rattle ancient modes of thinking. The revelations about Weinstein crashed like a tidal wave: even though the fallen mogul had plenty of enablers, relatively few people–beyond the women he abused or harassed–grasped the full extent of his manipulative, devious behavior. In our naiveté, we’d always assumed that beautiful, successful female actors just drifted through life, untouched by the travails ordinary women deal with every day; suddenly, we knew differently, as women risked their careers to speak out first about Weinstein and then, in a swell that became bigger and louder by the day, other abusers. The subsequent and swift downfall of other Hollywood players changed everything about how we view women–or anyone who doesn’t hold the big power cards–in the entertainment business. Now Hollywood isn’t just part of the political conversation; it’s actively driving it, motivating its denizens to speak out about certain core American values in a way we’ve never seen before.
But you know the rule: The more virtue signaling, the less actual virtue. And in Hollywood’s case, it’s just more whitening applied to the sepulcher.
BEGUN, THE TRADE WARS HAVE? Trump to Impose Steep Aluminum and Steel Tariffs.
The move fulfills a Trump campaign promise that helped fuel his surprise 2016 campaign victory in the industrial Midwest, and he told a White House meeting of industry executives that his coming measures—25% tariffs on steel imports, 10% on aluminum—would revive domestic manufacturing. “You’re going to see a lot of good things happen. You’re going to see expansion of the companies,” the president said.
But the impact on companies that use steel was swift and sharp. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 500 points, or 2%, after the announcement, as shares of big steel users, including auto makers Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., dropped even further.
A cascade of industry trade groups moved quickly to denounce the moves, including beer and boat makers worried about costlier aluminum, and manufacturers of chemicals, air conditioners, and oil pipelines all concerned about pricier steel inputs.
“It’s going to be expensive,” said Ed Bolas, chief financial officer at DyCast Specialties Corp., a Minnesota maker of parts for products including cutting tools and engines. “All of it will impact the consumer.”
Neither Smoot nor Hawley could be reached for comment.
CNN’S CUOMO IMPLICITLY REFERS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP AS A ‘VIRUS.’
Say, you know who else referred to people he didn’t like as a virus….
JAMES ANTLE: Trump’s one-man ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine with the NRA.
The NRA supported Trump when vast swathes of the conservative movement were still skeptical, but his remarks about disarming high-risk gun owners first and practicing due process later may bust through those limits. “The NRA is also going to protect due process for innocent Americans, and that is an approach that we are going to hold to,” group spokeswoman and commentator Dana Loesch told Fox News, calling it “a foundational principle of this country.”
In the course of a meeting that flummoxed Republicans, Trump expressed support for banning bump stocks through executive action, universal background checks, as well as strengthening the existing system, raising the age for AR-15 purchases and even a vote on an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., banning assault weapons. He told House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., that concealed-carry reciprocity, an important issue for gun rights activists, was politically untenable.
Trump has turned on early supporters before — just ask beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Of course, Second Amendment voters can do something Sessions can’t — make Trump a one-term President. Although it’s a safe bet Trump is well aware of that, and that his recent moves are more about positioning than tramping due process or supporting a new “assault weapons” ban.
I’M SORRY, BUT IF YOUR FIRST THOUGHT UPON SEEING A STATUE OF A GORILLA INVOLVES BLACK PEOPLE, then you’re the racist.