ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Tom Brokaw Argues That Hispanics Should ‘Work Harder At Assimilation,’ Pays A Heavy Price On Twitter.
UPDATE: Hacked, or Brokaw’s ghost-tweeter is 16 years old? Can’t wait to hear the story behind this tweet:
(Bumped.)
Archive for 2019
January 27, 2019
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In case you missed it, a would-be terrorist was arrested last week for allegedly plotting a massive, multi-faceted attack on the White House. The plotter, 21-year old Hasher Jallel Taheb, hails from Cumming, Ga. His motive appears to have been jihad.
Might this story have been a tad bigger if the alleged perpetrator hadn’t been a Muslim and “person of color?” Might it have been bigger yet if the sitting president had been a Democrat?
Of course it would have. It might even have gotten a fraction of the coverage that last October’s letter bomb scare received.
But wait, there’s more:
The reason I pose these questions is not to point out blatant media bias, which is so glaring at this point that no one who wasn’t trying could possibly miss it, but to ask how the current “climate of hate” in this country contributed to this Taheb’s blood lust, and what we as a society are doing about it.
Until fairly recently, I strenuously disagreed with this notion, and to some extent I still do. Climates, much like guns, do not kill people. People kill people. Blaming a climate lets the perpetrator off the hook because, when the killer’s agency is minimized, so too is his culpability. What else can a passive receptor of hate-filled messaging do except to kill the person whom he is told to despise?
The other reason I have resisted the idea of killer climates is that it seems to lead, like night into day, toward censorship. If climates kill, then our words, even our thoughts, must be policed. Preemptive measures must be taken. Children must be indoctrinated in government schools to prevent dangerous ideas from occurring in the first place. Adults must be shamed, doxxed, and fired from their jobs for fear of what other people completely unknown to the speaker might do upon hearing their words. I am on record saying that the blurring of distinctions between speech and violence is eroding our right to express ourselves, and I still believe that.
But in recent years, I have started to reevaluate my beliefs about killer climates. When a soak-the-rich socialist named James Hodgkinson attacked a group of Republican congressmen and staffers at a baseball practice in 2017, I couldn’t help but notice that he was feted by certain segments of the internet, most notably the Facebook groups we know he belonged to.
James Hodgkinson doesn’t strike me as a particularly bright individual, which tells me that he probably doesn’t do much of his own thinking. We know that he was a fan of Rachel Maddow, whose program appears on the network that pioneered the “24-hour hate” — a slightly elongated version of the “two minutes hate” that George Orwell spoke of — and it seems unlikely that his suggestible mind was not affected by it.
Read the whole thing. Exit question: Does the nonstop violent rhetoric against Trump and his supporters mean that leftists don’t actually believe that a “climate of hate” leads to violence — or that they do?
And in the “see also” links was this, which was heartwarming.
OPEN THREAD: Share your special thoughts.
IT’S COME TO THIS: Austin police identifies bank robbery suspect who used e-scooter for getaway.
(Via fellow Texas transplant Iowahawk, who tweets, “Bonnie & Clyde wept.”)
IN DEFENSE OF SPACE BOOBIES: The Left Are Annoying Puritans. “For a while now, I’ve been expecting the left to start wearing poke bonnets and naming their kids “Eschew Material Gain Jones” or “Thou Shalt Not Objectify Women Smith” or perhaps “Excoriate the Cishet White Male Harris.””
IT SHOULD HAVE SOUNDED AN ANTITRUST ALARM, TOO: Facebook’s plan to merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger sounds a privacy alarm.
GOOD GUY WITH A GUN: State police: Gun owner stops rolling road-rage on Pike. “Mark Fitzgerald, 37, of Ashland, and Richard Kamrowski, 65, of Framingham, were released on personal recognizance following their arrests. The incident ended with Kamrowski clinging to the hood of Fitzgerald’s 2016 Infinity QX70 for miles, smashing the windshield with a water bottle, until a third motorist state police said is a licensed gun owner drew his weapon on Fitzgerald and ordered him out of the SUV.”
THE INSTA-WIFE: Why bother going to stores when they don’t have anything in stock?
Several years ago I went to Best Buy to buy a cable — because I needed it that day — and even though it was something obvious like a mini HDMI cable or a Firewire, they told me they didn’t have it, but I could order it from their website. Thanks, guys. They had a lot of iPhone cases up front, though.
QUESTION ASKED: Kamala Harris might be “the first major presidential candidate who went to high school in Canada. As many people know Canada is the country that has ‘MRI machine insecurity.’ Will Kamala be the president to bring Canadian style wait times for your health care?”
IN EUROPE, THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING: Highbrows vs. Deplorables.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Small fitness improvements can reduce heart attack risk: study.
WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTI-SEMITISM? How Anti-Christian Bias in #FakeNews Media Is Encouraging Anti-Semitism.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: On Holocaust Remembrance Day, ‘Never Forget’ Is Being Forgotten.
Related: Democrats Have Too Many Anti-Semites To Punish Ilhan Omar.
CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU FIRES HIS AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: Lots of intrigue in this escapade. High stakes spy allegations, international trade war and more.
In an unprecedented move, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday said he had fired his ambassador to China, who prompted a political furor with comments about Huawei’s high-profile extradition case.
John McCallum had embarrassed Trudeau’s Liberal government by saying Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou could make a strong argument against being sent to the United States.
Opposition legislators and former ambassadors accused McCallum of unacceptable political interference in an affair which has badly damaged relations between Canada and China.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was arrested in Vancouver last month over alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
China subsequently detained two Canadian citizens on national security grounds. A Chinese court later retried a Canadian man who had been jailed for drugs smuggling and sentenced him to death.
Possibly hostage taking under the color of law? I don’t know, but it strikes me as a reasonable question.
MORE: “Veteran diplomats and experts told Reuters it was the first time a Canadian ambassador had ever been officially fired.”
A BIT MORE:
Brock University professor Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat who had served two postings in China, said McCallum’s comments on Meng possibly avoiding extradition had signaled to Beijing that its hard line tactics were working.
“He really made it untenable for the prime minister to sustain him (in his post) for any length of time and he had to go,” Burton said by telephone, suggesting Trudeau should quickly appoint a special envoy to handle the dispute.
According to the report McCallum was a political appointee, not an experienced diplomat.
ON THIS DAY IN 1967: GRISSOM WHITE AND CHAFFEE ON A ROCKET RIDE TO HEAVEN: A dead-end date on AS-204. May they rest in peace. And frankly, I’d have been proud to inspire this song.
CHINESE TORPEDO SEIZED OFF VIETNAM: An interesting little tale.
In December 2018 a Vietnamese fisherman operating about eight kilometers off the coast of central Vietnam, spotted a large circular object floating nearby and, curious about that it might be, attached a rope to it and brought it onto a local beach. Once on the beach, someone realized it appeared to be a torpedo (it was seven meters long, 533mm in diameter and had a propeller). Part of it was painted red and it had Chinese language writing on it. The police were called and they brought in a naval officer to confirm that it was a Chinese training torpedo that had not been retrieved after use. The torpedo was put under guard until it could be removed for further examination. Before removal, many cell phone photos were taken and found their way to the Internet.
The article also discusses fishermen snaring AUVs (Autonomous Undersea Vehicle) in the western Pacific.
SPIRIT HIGH IN THE PACIFIC SKY: A B-2 bomber conducts an aerial refueling over the Pacific near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
TWO NBCs IN ONE:
● Shot: Tom Brokaw Claims GOPers Tell Him They’re Not Fans of ‘Brown Grandbabies.’
—NewsBusters, today.
● Chaser: You can save half a million dollars if you don’t have kids.
—Tweet by CNBC, Wednesday.
Naturally, no one on the Meet the Press panel pressed Brokaw to actually name names, beyond good ol’ Mr. Somesay.
The assault on the MAGA red hat is a vivid example of the Left’s outright racism and anti-religious bigotry. Congresswoman Omar is just fine with her hijab — to attack that is religious bigotry. But to attack Catholic boys and their red hats? The Left has no problem. Note well: Trayvon Martin was shot to death for, as the charge went, wearing a hoodie. The red hat is not just today’s hijab, it is today’s hoodie. No one should ever be murdered —literally or twitterly — because of what they wear. Ever.
True, but comparing the MAGA hat to the hijab is a specious comparison. One is the symbol of a certain group of the right in the second decade of the 21st century; the other is the “ultimate feminist choice,” as former Al Gore advisor Naomi Wolf assured us all a decade ago.
MY MOST POLITICALLY INCORRECT QUESTION: I’m aware that the US has agreed to ban the use of landmines that do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, but putting that aside, why wouldn’t 10,000 to 20,000 motion-activated Claymores along the Southern border be an effective deterrent? If POTUS declared illegal wall-jumpers as enemy combatants (MS-13 and the like) wouldn’t that work?
Discuss.
DARN, AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT WAS PLUTONIUM: Tungsten Sphere – 2.5″ Diameter.
NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: We’re All Gonna Die!
FLASHBACK: Baby Jane Holzer’s screen test for Andy Warhol. He told her not to blink.
Related: A retrospective appreciation.