Archive for 2019
November 13, 2019
ANOTHER SCORCHER, HOT OFF THE PRESS: This morning the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report entitled “In the Name of Hate: Examining the Federal Government’s Role in Responding to Hate Crimes.” The report … uh … needs work. My dissenting statement tries to deal with the issues the majority ignored: hate crime hoaxes, overbroad definitions of hate crimes, and double jeopardy.
WHY ARE POLICIES SO … DIFFERENT? The Real Mystery about C*aramella and Vindman.
I THINK I DISAGREE. I THINK HILLARY’S ONLY REAL DEFENSE IS DEMENTIA. Hillary Clinton’s ‘Russian Asset’ Comment About Tulsi Gabbard Was Dumb, Not Defamatory.
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, NAT HENTOFF? Journalists Against Free Speech. The First Amendment is no longer sacred among journalists steeped in progressive orthodoxy about “hate speech” and “repressive tolerance.” My piece in City Journal discusses the new censors at HuffPost, Vox, the New Republic, Slate, the Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review and other media outlets.
These mostly younger progressive journalists lead campaigns to get conservative journalists fired, banned from Twitter, and “demonetized” on YouTube. They don’t burn books, but they’ve successfully pressured Amazon to stop selling titles that they deem offensive. They encourage advertising boycotts designed to put ideological rivals out of business. They’re loath to report forthrightly on left-wing censorship and violence, even when fellow journalists get attacked. They equate conservatives’ speech with violence and rationalize leftists’ actual violence as . . . speech.
Read the whole thing.
WOMEN WHO TAKE PAID MATERNITY LEAVE ARE MORE LIKELY TO BECOME STAY-AT-HOME MOMS, AND THAT’S A PROBLEM BECAUSE REASONS. “Maybe rational women, who respond to the incentive of paid leave, also analyze other aspects of life in economic terms and figure out the value of the work done in the home, the costs of going to work, and the good reasons to institute division of labor within the family, with only one parent engaged in money-earning outside the home. Maybe you get some perspective on life and economics when you’ve got the time to reflect and plan. When you’re outside of the workplace, you may develop a sense of the meaning of life that isn’t workplace-based? Does the government want that not to happen?!”
HEH: ‘Shameless’ Posters Hijacked in L.A. to Protest Impeachment Hearings. “The new posters were plastered on benches and behind glass at bus stops in and around Hollywood, focusing on the district represented by Congressman Adam Schiff.” Sabo strikes again!
CARBONITE REACHING EXPIRATION DATE: Out Sick: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Misses Arguments After Two Cancer Scares in 1 Year.
HOUSTON: Judge Alexandra Smoots-Thomas suspended following federal indictment. She’s already playing the race card, but it was maxed out under Obama. “She’s a black female Democrat, and I think they saw this as an opportunity to get her off the bench and try to start putting Republicans back on the bench in a county where there’s none that exist.”
The emerging rule is that it’s per se illegitimate to prosecute, or even to investigate, Democrats, because reasons. Of course, given cases like Tom Delay — or even President Trump — the notion that Democrats regard all prosecutions as inherently political seems plausible.
BAN ALL THE THINGS! Ellie Goulding Cancels The Salvation Army.
“THIS CATEGORY OF CRIME WAS NOT EVEN LOGGED BEFORE 2017.” Sweden’s 100 explosions this year: What’s going on? You imported a lot of explodey people. But we’ll never know officially: “Swedish police do not record or release the ethnicity of suspects or convicted criminals, but intelligence chief Linda H Straaf says many do share a similar profile.”
TYLER O’NEIL: I’m an Evangelical Christian. Here’s How Some Lesbian Feminists Became My Heroes.
I really enjoyed this piece.
HMM: Lyft Says Ditch Your Car (and Ride in Ours), Teams with Carvana Used-Car Buying Service. “Lyft has brought back its ‘Ditch Your Car for a Month’ program and has doubled down by teaming with Carvana to suggest people ditch their cars forever. Last year, Lyft gave 150,000 people in 35 cities some free ride credits if they promised not to use their car for a month. This year, you actually have to sell your car to Carvana in exchange for the Lyft benefits.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Schiff Show: Impeachment Going Forward on Calvinball Rules.
That’s my regular, free daily column. But for PJMedia’s VIP members, there’s also this old-school fisking: Thanks But No Thanks: Author Wants You to Give Thanks to the USSR.
If you’re interested in joining but haven’t, the coupon code VODKAPUNDIT is still good for a nice little discount.
SAD: Mooney Shuts Down, Employees Furloughed. “To those watching Mooney’s sales numbers over the first half of this year, the shutdown is probably not a huge surprise. According to GAMA sales records, Mooney sold two Acclaim Ultras in each of the first two quarters, after selling 14 aircraft at a value of $10.7 million in 2018. For context, Cirrus sold 203 aircraft in the first half of 2019, while Mooney’s output trailed Extra, Pipistrel and Quest’s.”
The Acclaim was a really sharp-looking small plane, and quite the performer, too.
IMPEACHMENT UPDATES: Devin Nunes Comes Hard in His Opening Statement, Adam Schiff Makes a Ridiculous Claim.
NOT A DISPATCH FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: One Trade School’s Path To Success. A Pennsylvania college offers kids from hard-up homes an old-fashioned form of social justice: training for a good-paying career.
JIM HANSON: Alex Vindman Is Living, Breathing Proof That The Deep State Exists, And It Is Corrupt.
The game is fixed in DC: politicians come and go, but the bureaucracy chugs along protecting and advancing its own interests. Two perfect examples unfolded in the most recent presidencies. Barack Obama chose a nuclear deal with Iran as the legacy achievement of his foreign policy. He pursued it relentlessly to our detriment, both in actual ability to stop Iran from getting nukes, and in subjugating our entire foreign policy to this one goal.
The Deep State loved it. They were all in on his side, and the media had never more completely acted as palace scribes dutifully parroting every administration talking point and obfuscating or attacking contrary views. They faithfully misinformed the public to the best of their ability, and in the end Obama, the bureaucrats, and the media rammed the deal through while the American public showed 2-1 disapproval. It was a victory for the Deep State.
Shift forward to the 2016 election campaign and the collusion between Democrats and Deep Staters to stop the Trump train and then, after it left Inauguration Station, to derail it. The Trump-Russia witch hunt is an egregious example of the power of the state being abused for partisan political purposes.
Read the whole thing.
BAN ALL THE THINGS! It Might Be Time to Get Rid of Gas Stoves in Order to Fight Climate Change.
Yesterday we had to eliminate white people or something to fight climate change, so maybe this is progress of a sort.