Archive for 2019
January 29, 2019
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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: The state of our union is … ON. “Yesterday, I went to an event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Riveting, I know. What I saw there was truly remarkable, however. Radical feminists and a man who used to identify as a woman spoke to a conservative audience, and received a standing ovation.”
There’s a genuine fissure here opening on the Left, and a politician like Trump might be able to exploit it.
And Tyler is filling in for Liz today.
MOVING ON THE RIBBON: A USMC ribbon bridge transports two M1A1 tanks in an exercise at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
TWO MUST-READS FOR THIS MORNING: First, Peter Hasson of the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has found more and deeper evidence of the degree to which anti-Semitism permeates Rep. Rashida Tliab’s world.
Second: I’m betting you instantly recognize the person to whom The Federalist’s Warren Henry is referring with this observation: “X will shank someone with a shiv and then use it to clean her nails.” Henry says this fact appears to have escaped the notice of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to her electoral peril.
TOXIC FEMININITY: Restraining order sought against campus administrator after friendly workplace hug.
Christopher Forest, a new administrator at California State University Monterey Bay, had to appear before a judge last month for giving a coworker a friendly hug.
Forest, tapped as the founding director of the university’s budding Master of Science Physician Assistant program, had reportedly given the hug to a female coworker on his first day of work because she had helped him with some travel arrangements when he’d interviewed for the job.
But the hug’s receiver, Siphannay Burnes, an administrative and research analyst for the College of Health Sciences and Human Services, responded with a request for a restraining order against Forest. The judge declined to grant the restraining order but did admonish campus officials on Burnes’ behalf, saying she had a right to be fearful.
“A right to be fearful” is based on the presumption that all men are rapists or harassers until proven otherwise — and you can’t ever prove otherwise.
Weird that men are avoiding women in the workplace all right.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Another Side of #MeToo: Male Managers Fearful of Mentoring Women.
“The business case for women had been made,” Ms. Milligan said. “We were rocking it. And then #MeToo happened.”
Big deal. All men have to do is not be rapists, right? Uh, no:
One challenge is to assess the risk of sexual harassment in a company and to identify men who make women uncomfortable — or worse, harass them.
Uncomfortable. See it’s not men’s actions, but women’s feelings, that are in the driver’s seat. Shocking that men would want to limit their risk by limiting their exposure.
WHAT ELSE HAVE THEY GOT, REALISTICALLY? Cathy Young: Is Rage The Future of Feminism?
JUST IGNORE THIS B.S. AND CONFIRM HER ANYWAY: Neomi Rao Gets Kavanaughed: The left dredges up college writing to defeat a judicial nominee.
I do remember how when people brought up Michelle Obama’s awful senior thesis we were told it was somehow out of bounds, and probably racist, to talk about such things.
CORRECTION: “UNEARNED SWAGGER.” Has the State Department Been Stripped of Its Swagger?
Two years into the Trump administration, dozens of ambassadorships remain vacant, with U.S. embassies doing business without a boss in the office.
And it’s not just ambassadorships. Back in Washington, the State Department’s top leadership ranks are riddled with empty offices. There is no chief financial officer. The undersecretary for democracy and human rights is operating without a Senate-confirmed nominee. The undersecretary for management, the person in charge of making sure the trains at Foggy Bottom run on time, is MIA. According to a running tally from the Washington Post , sixty-seven of the State Department’s 197 confirmed positions are without permanent officials, an astounding 34 percent.
Upon entering the department’s front door, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised to bring the “swagger” back to America’s diplomatic corps.
Staffing issues aren’t helping, certainly. But the post-Cold War period, particularly after 9/11, requires a State Department which is proactive, nimble, and most of all imaginative. Instead we’ve had a foreign policy establishment almost entirely dedicated to, well, the establishment. State has long been shorter on fresh thinking than it is on fresh butts in chairs.
IF YOU KNOW A SMART CONSERVATIVE/LIBERTARIAN LAW STUDENT (OR A VERY SMART COLLEGE STUDENT): … who would like to spend the summer interning for Commissioner Peter Kirsanow and me at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington for absolutely no pay, send him or her here. Thanks. We can use all the help we can get.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Trump and Our Medieval Elites.
SIX MONTHS SALARY MINIMUM: One Shutdown Lesson Is That Americans Need to Save More. You’d think that government employees, who make more than average Americans by a hefty margin and who know shutdowns happen regularly, would be better fixed. Then again, look how often our government is caught by surprise.
REALITY CHECK: Support for Single-Payer Healthcare Craters When Americans Discover Higher Taxes, Longer Wait Times.
As PJ O’Rourke quipped more than two decades ago, if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.
THEY’RE VERY LOYAL TO THEIR MURDEROUS LEFTY DICTATORS: America’s Stubborn Left Clings to Nicolas Maduro Despite All Evidence: It’s time to admit that Venezuela’s “21st century socialism” failed.
It didn’t fail. It enriched and empowered the people at the top. That’s what socialism always does. It’s a giant con, and its lefty supporters are either grifters, shills, or marks.
When Churchill said “the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries,” he was wrong. Misery in socialist countries is never equally shared. The people at the top live large; misery accrues further down the ladder, though it creeps up rung by rung over time, as Venezuela demonstrates.
J.D. TUCCILLE: If You Still Think the Shutdown Proves Government Is Important, You’re Seeing What You Want to See. “The theatrical federal government semi-shutdown is now over, or at least on hiatus, while the dominant political tribes in D.C. take a break from posturing to pay a few bills. And, I admit, I’m honestly sad to see the end of an inconvenience to government workers. Even as media pundits lamented the plight of federal employees waiting on delayed paychecks, it became increasingly obvious that many of their tasks are unnecessary, better performed by the private sector, or downright dangerous.”
Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish, thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and working class.
The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement. . . .
Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.
So now we have Trump instead, who tells people to punch counterprotesters instead of picking up their trash.
When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. Brooks closes his Trump column with Psalm 73, but a more appropriate verse is Hosea 8:7 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Trump’s ascendance is a symptom of a colossal failure among America’s political leaders, of which Brooks’ mean-spirited insularity is only a tiny part. God help us all.
Still true, and as events abroad indicate, not limited to the US.
IMPORTANT POINTS PARTICULARLY FOR WANNA BE WRITERS: ‘Trust me’, said the author.
THE NOT-SO-FAMOUS ALBERT GALLATIN WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1761: On the south side of the Treasury Department Building in Washington stands a statue of the first Secretary of the Treasury—Alexander Hamilton. No surprise there: Hamilton has been viewed as an important figure for a long time, and these days he’s a sexy Broadway star too. At the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance, stands a likeness of the fourth Secretary—Albert Gallatin—a man who has been mostly forgotten. On more than one occasion, I’ve noticed tourists peering at the statue from the street and asking something like, “Who’s that? Why isn’t that Hamilton?” Poor Gallatin.
The two Secretaries had a lot in common—both were foreign born (Gallatin was Swiss, Hamilton was born in Nevis), both were orphaned at a young age, and both were financial whizzes at a time when financial sophistication was rare in the US.
When Jefferson became President he was convinced that Hamilton and his successors had been up to no good while in charge of the treasury and that Gallatin was the only man with the financial acumen needed to expose their wickedness. To Gallatin’s credit, after a thorough examination of the records, he explained to Jefferson that it wasn’t corruption that was the problem.
To Gallatin—who has been described by a biographer as having “a small-shopkeeper’s sense of integrity”—the real problem was the $83 million national debt still left over from the Revolution. He wanted to pay it down, but without imposing onerous internal taxes. During the Whiskey Rebellion, his sympathies had been with the western farmers, who were being taxed heavily. On the other hand, he knew when debt was appropriate and worked hard to provide the financing for the Louisiana Purchase when opportunity unexpectedly knocked. By 1812, he had whittled the debt down to $45 million, which was a significant accomplishment, especially considering that he’d nixed the whiskey and other direct, internal taxes. (Alas, it ballooned again on account of the War of 1812. War is like that).
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Thanks to taking an, um, more sympathetic role in the Whiskey Rebellion, Gallatin produced a much freer United States in L. Neil Smith’s alt-history novel The Probability Broach.
OOOH EARLY ENTRANT: ‘Serenity’ Kicks of Worst of 2019 Race.
ANSWER UNCLEAR. SHAKE THE MAGIC EIGHT BALL: Can the Republic Survive the Mainstream Media?
On the good side they are losing power and reach. Perhaps even fast enough.