Archive for 2018

STEPHEN KRUISER: My Path to Political Zen in the Age of Outrage. “I decided to write about my journey and the result is ‘Straight Outta Feelings (Political Zen in the Age of Outrage)’, which is now available on Amazon. It is a relatively short, retroactive examination that begins during the primaries and goes through to the present, examining how I went from being a Trump skeptic to thoroughly enjoying almost every single thing he does to aggravate the Democrats and their media puppets.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Here’s the Kindle link.

OPEN THREAD: You know what to do.

THE ARTICLE GOES OUT OF ITS WAY NOT TO SAY WHICH ETHNIC GROUPS ARE MOSTLY RESPONSIBLE: “During the past 22 months, not one person caught or identified as the aggressor in an anti-Semitic hate crime has been associated with a far right-wing group, Mark Molinari, commanding officer of the police department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, told me.”

But there’s this: “Within the course of a few days this month, a swastika showed up on an Upper West Side corner and two ultra-Orthodox men were attacked on the street in Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn in separate incidents. In one of them, according to the police and prosecutors, a Muslim livery driver jumped out of a car and started beating up his victim, seemingly at random, yelling ‘Allah.'”

ROGER KIMBALL: They Can’t Bear the Thought That Trump’s Win Was No Anomaly.

In the deepest sense, what is at stake can perhaps be best formulated as a question. Was the 2016 election, or more specifically, was the election of Donald Trump a horrible anomaly, a sort of political black swan event?

I suspect that most of President Trump’s more doctrinaire opponents, from the Right or soi-disant Right as well as from the Left, believe this. Like many who support the president, I have often entertained myself on sleepy afternoons by watching one of the various compilations that have been made of the mocking predications that were made in the days leading up to the election. It’s good family fun. Those reactions, especially the stunned reactions on election night as the awful truth was born in upon the punditocracy, was partly amusing, partly alarming. It was amusing because of the discrepancy between the pundits’ smug self-assurance and the reality of Trump’s election. It was alarming because of the uncomprehending virulence of their response to what was, after all, a free, open, democratic election in which their gal happened to lose.

Yes, they keep telling us Trump is a crazy man who will destroy our institutions, as they respond crazily to his presidency by trying to destroy our institutions.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Sex For Speed Bumps? “Catherine Padilla just wanted her city government to install speed bumps in her neighborhood to slow down cars and make her subdivision safer. The Town Council eventually voted to pay for the speed bumps after she presented a petition signed by 71% of the residents in the area, but Padilla says one member of the council – Lantana Mayor David Stewart – said he could guarantee the vote if she agreed to have sex with him.”

I suppose that’s one way to service your constituents.