UNDERCOVER VIDEO FROM CHINESE LABOR CAMP: Never-before-seen undercover video shot inside one of China’s labor camp shows inmates forced to spend long hours doing menial work at desks, with “cabbage swimming” soup their basic sustenance. Protesters of the terrible conditions are beaten badly, chained to beds, according to The Epoch Times, which has extensive sources inside China.
TWITTER AMPLIFIES ALL THE GARBAGE: Seattle Progressives explode when they heard conservatives on radio, TV. An excellent lesson on how SJW’s abuse Twitter to “deplatform” voices with which they disagree:
“It’s such a frequent occurrence, you can script out exactly how it will unfold: 1. media outlet will feature a conservative voice; 2. one or two fringe Twitter activists will get mad and call out the media outlet; 3. their followers will retweet and send out similar messages, all within a short time span, making it seem like they’re louder in voice then they are. It’s exactly what they will do to me on Twitter today for writing this.
You know, some guy named Glenn Reynolds just published a book about this very same thing.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Should the US Sell Saudi Arabia $100 Billion in Weapons?
CYBERSECURITY: Google confirms that advanced backdoor came preinstalled on Android devices. “After Google successfully beat back Triada in 2017, its developers found a new way in.”
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: House Democrats Start Fake Impeachment Hearings.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, ACADEMIC MCCARTHYISM EDITION: Legal immigrant prof’s criticisms of illegal immigration result in calls for his ouster.
NICE OF YOU TO NOTICE: I Helped Obama Win in 2012. Now Trump Is Using the Same Playbook.
THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL WAS BASED ON LIES AND MISREPRESENTATIONS: Iran-linked terrorists caught stockpiling explosives in north-west London. But this was hidden from the public, lest opinion turn against the nuclear deal, then pending, which was based on false representations of cooperation with Iranian “moderates.” I have what I think is the most comprehensive (and footnoted) collection of the lies, misrepresentations, and illegal activities undertaken by the Obama administration in support of the nuclear deal in Part III of this paper.
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY: My London Driver Knows Donald Trump.
I first met Roger last year when Prime Minister May invited me to Blenheim Palace for her dinner honoring President Trump and the First Lady.
The hotel organized a car for me and Roger was my driver.
Roger is English. I noted a slight American inflection in his accent.
He explained he once lived in the U.S. and worked for a limo service in West Palm Beach, Florida.
It was the late ’90s and early 2000s and, as it turned out, his car company had the account for Mar-a-Lago on Palm Beach Island.
He soon got to know its proprietor, “Mr. Trump,” as Roger refers to him in a reverential tone.
A nice coincidence, I thought as we talked.
Of all the drivers, I get the one who worked for Mar-a- Lago, where I am a member, and he even knows the owner!
Roger was fairly glib about his interactions with Mr. Trump.
He liked him.
This is a charming piece.
JOHN FUND: “Biden’s Abortion Flip-Flop Reveals His Weaknesses.”
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT, RACISTS WOULD BE OUT AND PROUD. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Melinda Gates Bashes ‘White Guys,’ Says She’ll Discriminate Against Them.
AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.
STUCK IN THEIR HIGH SCHOOL GLORY DAYS: Democrats Give John Dean Another ‘Big Thrill.’
Dean’s misconduct hardly began with Watergate. In 1966 he was fired from the Washington law firm of Welch & Morgan for “unethical conduct” that was “grounds for disbarment,” columnist Jack Anderson reported in April 1973. Dean had apparently tried to make a private deal for a TV broadcast license when he was supposed to be negotiating it on behalf of one of the firm’s clients.
During the Reagan Administration, seeking a new thrill, Dean — by now apparently beholden for life to the liberal Democrats who bestowed both 15 minutes of fame and a Get Out Of Jail Free card — declared in Newsweek that “The Iran-Contra inquiries involve matters of national security,” while “Watergate, on the other hand, involved the political security of Richard Nixon. These are Major-league matters versus Little League.”
In 2004, his big thrill was claiming that the crimes of President George W. Bush — chiefly liberating Iraq — were worse than Nixon’s, warranting Bush’s impeachment.
Read the whole thing.
ICYMI COLLUSION: Tim Pool: ‘Left Wing Media Activist Email Leak Shows How They Deplatform Political Rivals.’ So is this conspiracy to deprive people of civil rights under the civil rights laws? Or is it a conspiracy in restraint of trade — since the people targeted are often journalistic/pundit competitors — under the antitrust laws?
Why not both?
THAT’S A FEATURE, NOT A BUG: Crazy pork barrel projects are one more exhibit of reckless spending.
THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS “APPLAUDS THE PASSAGE OF THE EQUALITY ACT BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES”: The bill, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in various contexts, is unlikely to pass the Senate. Among other things, it seeks to force bakers with religious objections to gay marriage to bake wedding cakes for a gay couple. That seems needlessly extreme.
An earlier bill (called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or “ENDA”) was aimed only at employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. I had problems with that one too, but at least its authors seemed to want secure its passage by attracting some Republican votes.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More Universities Close Their Full-Time MBAs Programs, Shift To Online. “If you were able to get every dean in the U.S. under a lie detector, outside of maybe the top 20 M.B.A. programs, every one of them would admit they were struggling to maintain enrollment and losing money on the program.”
All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
HMM: How Vietnam may curb China’s ambitions.
Now the global situation is more complicated and the relations among global powers, namely the United States and China and Russia has worsened. It’s now approaching three years since the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued its landmark ruling in the Philippines vs. China case, resulting in a nearly unanimous victory for Manila and a call for the role of international law in settling South China Sea disputes peacefully.
“China and Vietnam have overlapping claims in the South China Sea and over the past decade or so Beijing has stepped up its pressure on Vietnam by reclaiming and militarizing islands and pressing Vietnam not to exploit oil and gas resources in areas near Vietnam’s coast but where China also has claims. Hanoi hopes that building out its diplomatic ties will prompt Beijing to be more cautious in its dealings with Vietnam,” claims Murray Hiebert, a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
While freedom of navigation operations has increased in the South China Sea, signaling America’s right of transit, Vietnam could be forced to show its hand if the Trump administration decides to assert itself further. This week’s somewhat muted announcement by the United Stats that it is selling unarmed surveillance drones to Vietnam, has placed China on notice.
It’s the new containment.
IT’S CALLED TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME FOR A REASON: To Defeat Trump, New York Times Columnist Argues, We Must Abolish Judicial Review.
STALINIST PSYCHIATRY ON PARADE: Democrats plan Capitol Hill event to put Trump’s mental health under fire.
But how humiliating is it for them, if Trump’s crazy, given that he’s beating them like a rug?
JOEL KOTKIN: The Resistance We Need: The Trump Administration Gears Up to Trust-Bust the Tech Giants. “On this one, Trump is right as rain—and so are Sanders and Warren. The federal government should have been taking apart these greedy tech monopolies years ago. Let’s get cracking.”
Plus:
We have been accustomed to think of technology entrepreneurs as bold, risk-taking individuals who thrive on competition but now we know that it is more accurate to see them as oligarchs ruling over an industry ever more concentrated, centrally controlled and hierarchical. Rather than idealistic newcomers, they increasingly reflect the worst of American capitalism—squashing competitors, using indentured servants from abroad, colluding to fix wages, and dodging taxes while creating ever more social anomie and alienation.
The Valley, as one observer puts it, has taken a “reprieve from the bogeymen in the garage.” That is, while the tech giants peddle the tired meritocratic myth that there’s some genius in a garage this close to replacing them—if that genius could still afford a garage in the Bay Area, at least—in fact, they simply buy out or price out new competitors.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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