SAUL ALINSKY SMILES: Liberals haunted by social media tactics they use against the right.
Archive for 2019
September 10, 2019
CAVEAT VENDITOR: Why Hornady Stopped Selling Ammunition to Walmart 12 Years Ago.
In my previous life, I worked for a company that lived and died by Walmart. And like many companies, Walmart treated them poorly. And, as we were going through these things with Walmart, I decided that if I was ever in a situation where I didn’t have to do business with them, I would not. And when I got to Hornady, we were doing some business with them, it wasn’t a lot, but they started to become difficult to work with again. I was in a situation where I made the decision for our company to walk away and everybody in the company supported my decision. And we have not looked back.
Much more at the link.
ENDORSED: Constitutional law scholar runs for Yale trustee to protect free speech, intellectual diversity.
For the second time in two years, a Yale alumnus is running for trustee of the Ivy League institution on a platform of free speech and intellectual diversity.
This time, it’s a much bigger name: constitutional law scholar Nicholas Rosenkranz.
The Georgetown law professor cofounded Heterodox Academy, which advocates viewpoint diversity among faculty, and serves on the boards of both the Federalist Society and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
“A group of alumni approached me and asked if they could put my name forward,” Rosenkranz told The College Fix in an email, referring to a group known as Alumni for Excellence at Yale.
“I share many of their concerns about the state of free speech and intellectual diversity on campus, and I am honored that they chose me to help voice these concerns, so I agreed,” he said.
His Heterodox Academy cofounder Jonathan Haidt, the New York University social psychologist and pop-culture figure, is giving his campaign a boost as well. Last week Haidt asked Yale alumni among his 171,000 Twitter followers to help get Rosenkranz’s name on the ballot for alumni trustee.
He’s got my support.
ALGERIA’S SPRING AND SUMMER CONTINUES INTO FALL: Below the radar protests have continued for six months.
A major factor in the persistence of these protests is the fact that 70 percent of the Algerian unemployed are job-seekers in their late teens and 20s. Many have never been able to get a job. The unemployment rate is about 15 percent, up from the 12 percent it was stuck at for several years. Corruption and mismanagement of the former government was seen as a major reason for the high unemployment, especially among the younger Algerians. Another incitement is how the interim government is using its control over mass media to criticize the protestors at every opportunity.
And a systemic weakness:
The government has a way to measure how long it can avoid making decisive and effective changes in the economy and avoid a popular uprising. It all depends on how long the foreign currency reserves last. They dipped below $100 billion at the end of 2017 and are headed for $64 billion at the end of 2019 and $47 billion by the end of 2020. The government inability to reform (suppress corruption) the economy quickly enough to reduce vulnerability to low oil prices becomes obvious when the foreign reserve situation is reported, as they must be to placate foreign exporters and lenders. Foreign exchange reserves, essential to pay for imports, keep declining because 70 percent of what Algerians consume is imported.
And this:
The interim government has ordered that troops and police avoid violence against the demonstrators at all costs. Army leaders know that shooting of protestors risks another civil war.
So Algeria is setting a good example for Beijing — or let’s hope so. One other point: the Algerian military is about to destroy the last Islamic State camps in the mountains along the Algerian-Tunisian border.
This podcast, recorded three weeks ago, provides in-depth background.
OSPREY NIGHT: A USMC MV-22BOsprey prepares for a night flight at Twentynine Palms, California.
I HOPE THIS ISN’T TRUE BUT IT PROBABLY IS: Prosperity Breeds Idiots.
At the start of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel In the First Circle, a Soviet diplomat on home leave in Moscow tries to make an anonymous call to the U.S. embassy. His purpose: warning the Americans of a Soviet theft of atomic secrets. But he gets a dull-witted, indifferent embassy staffer on the line, and the call goes nowhere. Or almost nowhere. The call is monitored by Soviet security. Arrested and imprisoned at the end of the novel, the diplomat’s final thought about Americans is that “prosperity breeds idiots.”
Solzhenitsyn’s diplomat channels views that were clearly held by the author himself. Comfort and safety, enjoyed too long in the West, invite complacency—and complacency leads to stupidity. As a gulag survivor, Solzhenitsyn had a barely disguised disgust for Western elites with little experience of political murder and repression. Nor could he abide the legion of fools who seemed fascinated, from a secure and prosperous distance, with socialist thought.
Read the whole thing.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Rallies the American Riff Raff and All Is Well. “Talk to any serious Democratic operative (rough call, I know) and they will tell you that Barack Obama was all about Barack Obama and cared little for anyone else. President Trump didn’t really have to be in North Carolina for a rally, but the Republican party needed him there.”
ABOUT TIME: Carrie Lukas: Checking Progressive Privilege.
BONKERS: A 1% Growth Limit Across The Front Range Could Be Up For Vote On Your 2020 Ballot.
The state Title Board, which determines how measures appear on ballots, approved Golden resident Daniel Hayes’ Initiative 122, an updated version of a measure he introduced earlier this summer. It would limit the number of residential building permits local governments could issue from Weld County in the north through the Denver metro to El Paso County in the south.
Hayes’ initiative would cap them to just a 1 percent rise every year. The measure, which would be a state law, couldn’t be repealed or adjusted until 2023. The new version of his measure includes an additional .15 percentage point allotment for affordable and senior housing.
“I think it’ll make it more popular,” Hayes said.
Opponents have a week to file a request for a rehearing with the Title Board. Hayes said he expects that will happen, and is girding for petitions to the state Supreme Court challenging the measure’s compliance with the single-subject rule and the sovereignty of home-rule cities.
“It’s just delay tactics,” he said.
Hayes argues the Front Range is growing too fast, and putting too much pressure on public schools and public water and transportation infrastructure. His measure is similar to Lakewood’s Question 200, which voters passed in July.
Let’s just call this what it really is: The Existing Homeowners Value Protection Act.
Then there’s the conceit that there is some “correct” rate of growth, and that government is competent to manage it without unintended consequences, which would be funny if it weren’t so destructive.
Prediction: If passed, Denver’s already crazy real-estate market will get even crazier, and we’ll end up with a totally unexpected housing crisis.
NO, TRUMP’S CRITICS AREN’T CRAZY AT ALL: Why ‘Friends’ Is The Wrong Show To Celebrate In The Trump Era. “The President is a white supremacist, and white nationalist domestic terrorism is at an all-time high in America, but sure, let’s totally celebrate one of the whitest shows in the history of white America with an extended interactive experience.”
THE BEST DEFENSE… Trump’s New Math: Inside the Plan to Flip Blue States in 2020.
Trump’s campaign is betting it can win in New Mexico. Flush with cash, the campaign is planning to announce a state director and additional ground staff there in the coming weeks, a campaign official tells TIME. Internal campaign data has convinced Trump’s political advisors they can energize a slice of the state’s Hispanic voters to vote for Trump in 2020 by emphasizing Trump’s handling of the economy, border security and his trade confrontation with China. According to U.S. Census data, 49.1 percent of New Mexico’s residents identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino.
The move is part of a series of bets Trump is making to win states that went for Clinton in 2016. Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner says that voter data has convinced the reelection effort to fund robust field operations in a much larger number of states than in 2016. “I can see us very aggressively playing in 18 swing states,” Jared Kushner tells TIME, adding that in his view, the 2016 Trump campaign “seriously played” in about 11 swing states.
More like this, please.
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: NRA sues San Francisco for declaring it a domestic terrorist organization.
THIS IS OBVIOUSLY HATE SPEECH, AND PROBABLY DOMESTIC TERRORISM: “I’m just going to hold CNN to its own standard here.”
IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH THEY’RE THE KIND OF PEOPLE YOU SHOULDN’T MAKE DEALS WITH: Iran had secret nuclear weapons development site in Abadeh. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran had been developing nuclear weapons at a secret site near the city of Abadeh, but that Tehran destroyed the facility after learning it had been exposed.”
THOUGHTS: Bret Stephens : bedbug :: Max Boot : ?”
AMERICANS BEING AMERICANS: In Dorian’s wake, flood of relief overwhelms North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Buddy Brittingham filled his flounder skiff with bleach jugs, stacks of toilet paper, kitty litter, cases of water, and SpaghettiOs until it almost sank.
The fisherman-turned-florist then set his bow toward sea, racing to help some 800 hurricane-riders in desperate straits after Hurricane Dorian threw a high elbow to Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks as it skated off toward the Canadian Maritimes.
As he skipped the 22 miles across Pamlico Sound with his cousin Cayton Daniels, the duo joined a flotilla of charity so overwhelming that emergency managers on Sunday had to warn that craft would be turned back.
Related: At the scene of a fatal car crash, I saw Americans reveal their fundamental decency.
THIS IS SCARY EVIDENCE OF HOW EFFECTIVE THE DEMOCRATS’ DEMONIZING AGITPOP CAMPAIGN IS: Rasmussen poll: 23% of voters say NRA should be declared a ‘terrorist group.’
A civil rights group you don’t agree with is a “terrorist group.” Let a Republican president suggest the same and watch the reaction. Imagine if Donald Trump said that the SPLC is “doing the Russians’ work by dividing Americans.” Unlike the above that would be literally true, but he’d be called Hitler for daring to criticize a “civil rights group.”
PRIVACY: A proposed Denver law would ban police from using facial recognition technology.
Connor Swatling doesn’t want Big Brother watching you.
The Denver resident has introduced a ballot measure banning the Denver Police Department and every other city entity from using facial recognition technology for law enforcement purposes.
DPD does not currently use the technology, department spokesperson Sonny Jackson said. He added that the department does not use local or national databases that use the tech. Denver Police does operate more than 250 “HALO” cameras, but Jackson said those don’t have facial recognition capabilities.
Swatling’s initiated ordinance will need to receive more than 8,000 valid signatures to have the question appear before voters for the 2020 election.
He’s already launched a website for his campaign: 5280not1984.com.
The site is still under construction, but if you’re a Denver resident, it might be worth looking into.
IT DOES KINDA SEEM THAT WAY: It’s Official: The Democrats Just Want You Dead. My first clue was all the Democrats saying they wanted me dead.
WHO WOULD EXPECT THAT OF CRIMINALS??? US mass shooters exploited gaps, errors in background checks.
There will always be a loophole or an error. The solution is not to make law more draconian. The solution is to enable, teach and facilitate self-defense. (A.k.a. the “sell your cloak and buy a sword” plan.)
AGAIN, LOOK, EVEN PURELY BY ACCIDENT WOULDN’T THESE PEOPLE OCCASIONALLY ACHIEVE WHAT THEY PURPORT TO WANT? Vegan activist who ‘rescued’ 16 rabbits killed nearly 100 in the process.