CRYSTAL BALL CLOUDY. NONE OF THEIR ACTIONS MAKES SENSE TO ME: Are House Democrats Getting Cold Feet?
Archive for 2019
November 27, 2019
November 26, 2019
ABOUT TIME: President Trump to designate Mexican criminal cartels as terrorist organizations. Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their yes-men/womyn/transient-media were not available for comment.
JEREMY CORBYN DESTROYS HIMSELF: “You ever wondered how it was that Romans actually enjoyed watching people torn to shreds by wild animals in the Colosseum? Watch BBC interviewer Andrew Neil’s merciless inquisition of Jeremy Corbyn, which aired this evening in the UK…let’s just say that it is hard to fathom the British people entrusting their nation to a man like this. Watch the last five minutes of the thing, in which Corbyn can’t bring himself to say he would give the kill order to British special forces if they cornered the head of ISIS as he was about to order a terrorist attack.”
AT AMAZON, Countdown To Black Friday Deals.
WHAT A MONSTER. NO WONDER PEOPLE ARE BOYCOTTING THEM: Hobby Lobby President Tells Workers ‘Their Family Is More Important Than This Business.’
POWERFUL SYMBOLISM: Lech Walesa going to Hong Kong.
Lech Walesa faced down an “evil empire” and freed his country from the yoke of Communist domination. Now, three decades later, the former Solidarity leader, Polish president and Nobel Peace Prize winner says he is ready to go to Hong Kong and stand with protesters there who are trying win a similar victory for freedom.
The circumstances the Hong Kong protesters face today are eerily similar to those Walesa faced in Poland. In Hong Kong, as in Poland, a grass-roots movement has risen up against a communist puppet government. In Hong Kong, as in Poland, they are menaced by a totalitarian empire across their border that threatens to invade and crush them. In Hong Kong, as in Poland, the puppet regime has cracked down on the protesters, firing at marchers in the streets and arresting opposition leaders. And in Hong Kong, as in Poland, few believe the democratic forces can prevail against the massive powers arrayed against them.
That should not faze them, Walesa told me in an interview. “When I was involved in my struggle, nobody in the world believed we could win the victory. I consulted the big leaders of the world. … and none of them, not even a single one, claimed that we stood the least of chances.”But they did succeed — and Walesa believes the odds of success in Hong Kong are even better than they were in Poland. Decades ago, Solidarity broke the regime’s monopoly on information by publishing underground newspapers printed with shoe polish that were passed from person to person. Today, he says, modern communications technology means Hong Kong’s opposition “can communicate in real time instantly … to establish their solidarity, solidarity among themselves, but also solidarity with the leaders of the world.”
Moreover, in Poland, Walesa says, Communist authorities “would be ridiculing us saying, ‘You are so few. What power do you represent?’” It was only after Pope John Paul II first visited Poland in 1979, and millions came out to greet the Polish pontiff, that they realized the Communists had lied to them. They were not so few, after all; they were millions strong. But in Hong Kong, the people know they are not few. This weekend, nearly 3 million people — over 71 percent of eligible voters — turned out for district council elections, the only fully democratic elections in Hong Kong. In a vote considered a referendum on the protest movement, the pro-democracy parties crushed the pro-Beijing parties, showing that the people of Hong Kong support the opposition.
Of course, Beijing learned the lessons of Walesa’s success. Chinese leaders saw that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was unwilling to kill indiscriminately to maintain power. In Tiananmen Square, they demonstrated no such reticence. This is why, Walesa says, it is critical that the United States and the rest of the world’s democracies stand with the people of Hong Kong and use their leverage to deter a Chinese crackdown.
He’s right. And Trump’s spent the last few months teaching the PRC’s leadership that their economy, and diplomacy, is far more fragile than they had thought. He seems to have some skill at economic warfare, and some understanding of mass opinion on the part of those disenfranchised by their leadership.
UPDATE: Speaking of those disenfranchised by their leadership, I’m reminded in the comments that Walesa was a Tea Party supporter. More here.
UNLIKE COMMUNISM, UNFETTERED CAPITALISM HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED IN ANY NATION: Opponents of ‘Unfettered Capitalism’ Are Fighting a Phantom. Which is too bad.
“POOPING IN THE STREET HAS CONSEQUENCES:” Schwab Inc. leaving San Francisco for Texas.
THE TRUMP ERA IS A MARVELOUS TIME IN AMERICA: Toys ‘R’ Us is back, and it’s opening its 1st store this week in N.J.
OPEN THREAD: I’m thankful for all of you.
HONG KONG’S BALLOTS CHALLENGE CHAIRMAN MAO’S GUN BARRELS:
The Hong Kong pro-democracy movement’s overwhelming Nov. 24 election victory demonstrates that the city’s brave citizens disdain Mao Zedong’s political ditties almost as much as they scorn the crooked Chinese Communist Party tyranny the mass-murdering former chairman created.
Mao, who fancied himself a poet and philosopher, declared that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. From the Soviet Kremlin to the University of California, Berkeley to Jane Fonda, the global left waved Mao’s Little Red Book, applauded his so-called “thoughts” and proclaimed radical Marxism to be humanity’s future.
Hong Kong’s 2019 protests and the recent district election results are actions –deeds, not words — that directly challenge Mao’s gun barrel maxim and lay claim to a future where political power expresses the will of free people.
My latest Creators Syndicate column.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Beijing Was Confident Its Hong Kong Allies Would Win. After the Election, It Went Silent.
The Chinese government seemed confident that its allies would prevail in the Hong Kong elections on Sunday.
For a week, commentators wrote brassy pieces saying the Hong Kong public would go to the polls to “end social chaos and violence,” a vote against what they saw as rogues and radicals. Editors at state-run news outlets prepared stories that predicted withering losses for the protest movement.
When it became clear early Monday that democracy advocates in the semiautonomous territory had won in a landslide, Beijing turned silent. The news media, for the most part, did not even report the election results. And Chinese officials directed their ire at a familiar foe: the United States.
The sudden pivot reflects the ruling Communist Party’s continuing struggle to understand one of its worst political crises in decades. At various moments in the months long protests in Hong Kong, Beijing has been caught off guard, forced to recalibrate its propaganda machine.
They don’t understand democracy, or how people used to democracy think. How could they?
UPDATE (FROM AUSTIN): Glenn’s addition is right in line with my column, which I wrote on Monday. The issues the essay explores will resonate for 30 years. 30 is a reasonable number — the Tiananmen Square massacre has resonated for 30 years, despite the Chicoms attempts to erase it from history. Sunday’s November 2019 ballot in Hong Kong was the first time Chinese citizens had a chance to cast a vote rejecting the Chinese Communist Party’s June 1989 thug decision to turn Tiananmen Square into a slaughter house. The Beijing Commies lost the 2019 ballot, big time. Why? My guess: Thugs tend to surround themselves with frightened yes men. My latest book, Cocktails from Hell, explores Red China’s numerous gambits, delusions and fragilities.
EASIER TO BREAK INTO THE CRAWL SPACE THAN TO LEAVE, SOMETIMES: Knoxville man discovers strangers sneaking into crawl space.
NATION’S PROGRESSIVES GIVE THANKS THAT THEY HAVE SO MUCH TO BE ANGRY ABOUT THIS YEAR.
From the Babylon Bee, America’s new Paper of Record.
OUT ON A LIMB: Bloomberg’s Bet Will Fall Short Of President.
CHINA SYNDROME: “Wash Brains, Cleanse Hearts”: Evidence from Chinese Government Documents about the Nature and Extent of Xinjiang’s Extrajudicial Internment Campaign. Got the Cloudflare protection widget when I went here, which means they’re under DDOS attack, presumably from the Chinese or their tools.
SPOILER: PROBABLY NOT. Will 2020 Be the Year We Find Intelligent Alien Life?
ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE: THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO THE OTHER FELLOW.
Even with the presence of George Lazenby, it’s one of the best Bond films, not least of which because of Diana Rigg, fresh off the Avengers, as the “Bond girl.” Or as the head of 20th Century Fox told producer Cubby Broccoli during its premiere, the wrong character died at the end of the movie: “You should have killed him and saved the girl!”
IT’S THE 21st CENTURY. SHOULDN’T HERO DOGS BE ALLOWED TO CHOOSE THEIR OWN PRONOUNS*? Trump Under Fire for Using Male Pronouns to Describe Conan the Hero Dog.
* And/or species. “Actually, she identifies as a cat,” Ted Cruz tweets.
TREATING HIM LIKE A TRUMP SUPPORTER IN BERKELEY: Hong Kong crisis: Beat Edinburgh University student to death, Chinese citizens told.
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, AND ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: ‘Shame on you’: WaPo’s apology for tweet whitewashing Labour Party’s anti-Semitism arguably makes their initial offense even worse.
“The fact that they’re apologizing for the typo as opposed to the actual content of their tweet arguably makes their initial take even more offensive, because it appears that they’re going out of their way to avoid blaming the Labour Party’s anti-Semitism for the Labour Party’s reputation as anti-Semitic,” Twitchy notes.
And they’ve since deleted that tweet — the Post’s social media operation is really having a bang-up day today. Or as the Babylon Bee would say, paraphrasing Monty Python, “We apologize for the fault in the reporting. Those responsible have been sacked.”
Meanwhile The Root, the black identity politics-themed Website created under the watch of the Graham family, the former owners of the Post until Jeff Bezos bought it with money he found under his sofa cushion, is having a spectacular day as well: “Pete Buttigieg Is a Lying MF,” columnist Michael Harriot writes:
So, when a clip surfaced of Buttigieg explaining why negro kids fail at school so often, his answer made perfect sense.
“Kids need to see evidence that education is going to work for them,” Buttigieg explained whitely, when he was running for mayor in 2011. You’re motivated because you believe that at the end of your education, there is a reward; there’s a stable life; there’s a job. And there are a lot of kids—especially [in] the lower-income, minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven’t seen it work. There isn’t someone who they know personally who testifies to the value of education.”
I want to be clear: Pete Buttigieg is a lying motherfucker.
Or as Newsweek noted, “Buttigieg Slammed for ‘Racist Paternalism’ After Saying Minority Children Lack Role Models for Education.”
Harriot slammed the South Bend, Indiana, mayor for claiming that children from poorer, minority neighborhoods had no role models who testified “to value of education.” He also said the mayor’s remarks about minority and poor children were “bulls***tery” and “insidious double-talk” that camflouaged a real problem.
In a resurfaced 2011 TV interview with Buttigieg, which was picked up on social media Sunday, the then-South Bend mayoral candidate said there were “a lot of kids” from “especially low income, minority neighborhoods” that didn’t know someone personally “who testifies to the value of education.”
The Democratic primary candidate was scorched on social media shortly after the film surfaced, with commentators calling his argument “bulls**t bootstraps racist paternalism” and “victim blaming.”
The Root essay not only highlighted Buttigieg’s difficulty in connecting with black voters—a crucial Democratic demographic—but likely deepened it. He is polling strongly in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first caucus and primary states, but the battle for the Democratic nomination quickly moves (after Nevada) to South Carolina, where African-American support will be key.
To his credit, Buttigieg called and spoke with The Root columnist personally, as Harriot wrote in a follow-up column:
I figured one of his surrogates would argue with me for a few minutes and I could continue my day trying to be a thorn in the side of white supremacy (The third thing you should know is that I actually keep a small photo of the mouse from Pinky and the Brain beside my bed that says: “What are you going to do today, Michael?” The answer is always the same: “Fuck with white people.”)
Luckily, as soon as I agreed to take a phone call, the phone rang. The voice sounded vaguely familiar and I knew it wasn’t a surrogate or a campaign volunteer when the person said:
“I don’t think I’ve ever been called a ‘lying motherfucker’ before.”
It was Pete Buttigieg.
Well, I thought. Maybe he does want to fight.
* * * * * * * * *
“But do you disagree with the point I was making?” Mayor Buttigieg asked, listing a few programs designed to alleviate this specific problem. “Sometimes children don’t get to see the possibilities. Do you think the lack of positive examples of educational success can lead to mistrust and a lack of confidence in the system?”
“No…well, yes,” I answered. “But the lack of confidence doesn’t have anything to do with role models or support from parents, it’s because the shit is true!”
Look, I know I shouldn’t be using obscenities around the maybe-president (Please don’t tell my mother), but he said “motherfucker” first!
No actually, Harriot did. (I’m surprised his editors bothered to censor the word in his article’s headline.) So much for the left portraying Trump as a uniquely vulgar individual — but then, as James Taranto tweeted last year, “A lot of the complaints about Trump’s departures from norms seem to me to be justifications for the critics’ own departures from norms.”
NOTHING IS SAFE: Man Dies After Being Licked by His Dog in Tragic And Rare Medical Case. Being asplenic, I’m more susceptible to this, although I’ve been licked by plenty of dogs and cats over the years to no effect.
THANKSGIVING PREP: The VodkaWife™ uses her own personal variation on Alton Brown’s deservedly famous turkey brine:
1 cup kosher salt
½ cup light brown sugar
½ gallon vegetable stock
½ gallon low-sodium chicken stock
1 tablespoon (or more!) black peppercorns
1-½ teaspoons allspice berries
3 tablespoons (ish) fresh chopped ginger
1 gallon heavily iced water
The turkey and the brine go in a heavy-grade trash bag which goes into one of those big Home Depot barrels which goes in the garage for at least 24 hours.
It isn’t quite leg-of-lamb delicious, but if you’re doing turkey it’s hard to do better than this.
Also: Forget adding butter when you’re mashing the potatoes, and use duck fat instead.
PROPAGANDA, INC. “According to 33-year-old Tara McGowan, Democrats have a big problem: The political media landscape isn’t liberal enough:”
Toward that end, McGowan is building a national network of local media outlets designed to look and feel like objective newsgathering organizations but which are designed to disseminate information and narratives favorable to Democrats. As Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Joshua Green notes in his profile of the operation, casual readers of “Courier Newsroom” publications will find no cues that might alert them to the fact that these “aren’t actually traditional hometown newspapers but political instruments designed to get them to vote for Democrats.” That is the whole point of this enterprise, and it has attracted the support of Democratic donors and prominent political professionals, including Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe.
I’m so old, I can remember right around this time last year, when leftists pretended to be upset about ideology and group think in the media world.
