Archive for 2019
July 16, 2019
PLEASE DON’T THROW HIM INTO THAT BRIAR PATCH: Al Green to force impeachment vote following incendiary Trump tweets.
PLUS: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday urged members to support a forthcoming resolution to condemn what she described as the president’s “xenophobic” tweets.
That’s weird. I thought Pelosi only believed in condemning bigotry in general, but not particular individuals — or does that just apply when the individuals are members of her caucus?
RICH LOWRY: Woke Assimilation: Teaching Our Politicians To Hate America. Oikophobia, like other forms of hate, must be taught.
Related: De Blasio’s hate is now mainstream for Dems and other commentary.
HARSH, BUT FAIR:
But even before that, defending her was a bad idea, and any serious person should have known it: Omar Holding Secret Fundraisers With Islamic Groups Tied to Terror: Closed-door events spark further questions about anti-Semitic rhetoric.
UPDATE: From the comments: “You do realize that, at some point, and much sooner than you expect, she’s going to be failing to condemn Antifa bombing the RNC headquarters. Then failing to condemn Antifa assassinating Republican candidates? This is headed towards a pretty ugly place if we don’t put a stop to it.”
We’re basically already there: Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History. And additional examples of leftist violence and eliminationist rhetoric at the link.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Donald Trump: Democrats Too ‘Petrified’ to Confront ‘Anti-USA, Pro-Terrorist’ Squad.
REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: The Labyrinthine Ways and Wages of Stefan Halper. “Stefan Halper, the shadowy Cambridge academic who may have helped the FBI spy on the Trump campaign, was paid more than $1 million by a U.S. agency for research papers of dubious value, according to new government report. But even as it shed new light on Halper’s work, the report left unanswered central questions about his Trump-Russia role and raised new ones about the circuitous winds on which Washington dollars manage to fly out the window.”
CALIFORNIA: HERE BE MONSTERS. Trucking apocalypse continues: California truckload carrier latest victim. Regulations blamed. “Retail average diesel fuel prices in California have shot up 75 percent since Feb 2016, while only jumping 58 percent on a national basis during the same period. California has added two fuel and excise taxes during the period, first with a 20-cent per gallon increase in 2017 and another 20-cent increase initiated this July. If taxes weren’t enough of a burden for California’s operators, the company’s environment czar, the California’s Air Resources Board (CARB), creates its own set of challenges.”
(Classical reference in headline.)
TO BE FAIR, THEY WERE GOING TO VOTE REPUBLICAN: Flashback: Jerry Brown, Biden and other Dems refused to accept Vietnamese refugees.
KEVIN DRUM: Are Democrats Now the Party of Open Borders?
I have to admit that it’s hard to see much daylight between Warren’s plan and de facto open borders. As near as I can tell, CBP will be retasked away from patrolling the border looking for illegal crossings; if border officers happen to apprehend someone, they’ll be released almost immediately; if they bother to show up for their court date, they’ll have a lawyer appointed for them; and employers will have no particular reason to fear giving them a job.
Am I missing something here? Does Warren’s plan explicitly make it vanishingly unlikely that anyone crossing our border will ever be caught and sent back?
Did the Dems just make a Trump voter out of Kevin Drum?
Well, probably not. But if he’s going all wobbly, you can imagine how things are shaking out in the center — only you don’t have to imagine, because Axios has the numbers.
WELL, THEY CAN RELY ON A COMPLICIT MEDIA NOT TO ASK THEM: Dems Quiet on Whether Own Student Loan Debt Should be Forgiven: Only 1 of 41 Dems in Congress with student debt said lawmakers should be exempted from loan forgiveness. Thank goodness for the Free Beacon.
#JOURNALISM: E.J. Dionne: No fair asking Democratic contenders to take a position.
Related: What Pelosi Versus the Squad Really Means: The progressive-liberal civil war isn’t just a conflict of what’s too far left. “Critics on the left argue that liberalism is a set of seemingly neutral procedures that the privileged adopt to mask their underlying grip on power. Left-wing critics detest liberalism’s incrementalism and argue that only a complete revolution will uproot injustice. They do not share liberalism’s belief in the primacy of free speech.”
Also related: How David Brooks Created Donald Trump.
AT AMAZON, Happy Prime Day!
CHARLES C.W. COOKE: On Gratitude And Immigration.
Legally, Ilhan Omar has exactly the same rights as someone born here. And she should, without exception. Culturally, though, the idea that Omar does not “owe a special debt of gratitude to the” United States is ridiculous, as is the idea that Omar’s views of the United States should not be affected by that debt. Of course she should be grateful! The United States saved her from a warzone, let her stay, accepted her as a citizen, and then elected her to Congress. If one can’t be grateful for that, what can one be grateful for?
Should Omar “temper her critiques of American politics and culture”? That depends. Again: Legally, Omar should enjoy every Constitutional protection available. And, as a matter of course, she should feel able to take part in the political process on the same terms as everyone else. But, culturally, it is absolutely reasonable for Omar’s critics to look at her behavior and say, “really, that’s your view of us?” It’s absolutely reasonable for Omar’s fellow Americans to dislike her and to shun her as a result. It is absolutely reasonable for them to consider her an ingrate — or to believe, as David does, that she is “a toxic presence in American politics.” And it is absolutely reasonable for them to wonder aloud how a person who hails from a dysfunctional, dangerous place built atop dysfunctional, dangerous institutions can exhibit the temerity — the sheer gall — to talk about America in the way that she does. There is a big difference between saying “I oppose current federal tax policy” or “I want more spending on colleges” or “the president is an ass,” and saying that America needs complete rethinking. As this Washington Post piece makes clear, Omar isn’t just irritated by a few things. She thinks the place is a disaster.
Interesting that recent immigrants like Cooke, or Sarah Hoyt, seem to get this point more clearly than virtue-signaling natives.
And this is just disgraceful:
This is the logic of a domestic abuser: I only hit you because I love you, and you’ve let me down so badly.
Related: Trump is not a racist; he’s pushing the Overton window to normal. “Trump stated the obvious. And by his willingness to state the obvious, he has returned the obvious to the realm of public discourse. He has shifted the Overton window back to a more normal, common sense debate. It wasn’t a mistake of epic proportions. It was a brilliant insistence on having public debate occur in reality world, not in the Leftist’s dystopian fantasy world.”
AT AMAZON, Prime Day Deals in Industrial & Scientific.
July 15, 2019
RHETORIC IS ONLY DANGEROUS WHEN IT COMES FROM THE RIGHT: DOUBLE STANDARD: Man Who Attacked ICE Facility Used AOC-Like ‘Concentration Camp’ Rhetoric. Media Remain Silent.
AT AMAZON, Happy Prime Day!
IN AMERICA, CLASS WARFARE IS DISGUISED AS CULTURE WAR: The death of the working class reporter: Journalism is becoming an elite profession—and that’s bad news.
SHOCKER: #TheSquad Press Conference Backfires Spectacularly. As Jim Treacher says, the left wants the right to shut up. The right wants the left to just . . . keep on talking.
GOODBYE, ILLINOIS: A fond farewell to state I love that doesn’t seem to love me.
WELL, BUT TO BE FAIR, FRAUD IS A CORNERSTONE OF THEIR OPERATION: Democrats’ hysteria over basic voting security undermining US democracy.
ANN ALTHOUSE ON “THE SQUAD:” “I am going to guess that talk of a circular firing squad — there’s been a lot of that — led to calling the 4 Congresswomen ‘The Squad.’ That would explain why the explanation of the origin is suppressed.”
Alternative source: “A dumb word only used by white middle schoolers in suburban areas to describe their group of friends and try to sound ghetto. It doesnt make them sound ghetto, but actually increases their whiteness.”
I think Trump understands that. But he’s not who funds conservative think tanks.
LESSONS FROM A FAILED HOME INVASION ATTEMPT.
If you’re worried about people kicking in your doors, consider Door Armor. Though making my doors harder to kick in does more to protect the kickers than to protect me. . . .
DAVID FRUM’S WARNINGS GO UNHEEDED: Trump Is Baiting Democrats: The president is trying to divide the House caucus and force it to fight the election on his terms. So far, it’s working. “Trump hit the Democratic Party at its point of vulnerability. He is driving it toward ever more radical outcomes: against the enforcement of immigration laws and for the acceptance of virtually all border crossers; against the bread-and-butter issues that will mobilize the voters the Democrats need and for the symbolic actions that will gratify the educated urban progressives who live in the safest Democratic districts in the country.”