UNEXPECTEDLY: Meanwhile, in the Heartland, Impeachment Isn’t Very Popular.
Archive for 2019
October 27, 2019
JUST NBC THE BECLOWNING! CNBC Hack John Harwood Is Really, Really Upset That Al-Baghdadi Was Killed.
Just think of Harwood as a Democratic Party operative with a byline, and it all makes sense. QED:
● NYT/CNBC’S John Harwood Advises Hillary Campaign, Gloats About Provoking Trump At Debate.
● CNBC’s John Harwood Has No Business Moderating A GOP Presidential Debate.
● CNBC Alters Transcript of John Harwood Question About Hillary’s Email.
● “Everyone in the [CNBC] newsroom knows [John Harwood is] extremely far left.”
NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME PLAYERS: SNL mocks Trump for ‘making ISIS great again’ on night of Baghdadi raid.
DON SURBER HAS THOUGHTS ON AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Why the Babylon Bee is the most important conservative site.
FORMER CONGRESSMAN JOHN CONYERS (D-MI) HAS DIED AT AGE 90:
Conyers was the only African American lawmaker in history to mark a golden anniversary in office. But after 53 years on the hill, his career would come to a stunning and sudden end in 2017 when former staffers came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct.
He denied the claims. But the congressman who fought so hard for the rights of others did not think he could get a fair shake in his own battle.
He retired from congress the very day he issued this statement saying: “I cannot allow the great work of this body to be distracted from their important wok or the goals of the Democratic Party to be distracted.”
Given the totality of the circumstance of not being afforded the right of due process and to preserve my legacy and good name, I am retiring.”
“I hope that my retirement will be viewed in the larger perspective of my record.”
Flashback: ABC’s Cokie Roberts: Oh, We All Knew To Avoid Getting In An Elevator With Rep. Conyers.
Pro tip to journalists who are around “27 years old, and…literally know nothing,” as budding novelist and former Obama hack Ben Rhodes would say: The New York Times’ necrophilic 1953 obit for Joseph Stalin, headlined, “Stalin Rose From Czarist Oppression to Transform Russia Into Mighty Socialist State,” is not a recommended template to follow when writing articles on terrorists and totalitarians who have recently assumed room temperature.
HISTORY: Actually, the Gilded Age Was Awesome for Equality. “The invocation of the Gilded Age like a cheap political talking point is bad economics and bad economic history.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. State ‘certificate of need’ laws need to go. “CON laws require health care providers to obtain permission (usually from an appointed board) before opening a new health care facility, before using new technologies, and in some cases before purchasing new equipment. In addition to hospitals, health care facilities can include nursing homes or other long-term care centers, rehabilitation programs and ambulatory surgery centers. The provider must prove to the board or agency that the community ‘needs’ the new or expanded service, program or equipment. Existing providers are invited to challenge the application, making a large hurdle even taller.”
WHERE’S CASEY STENGEL WHEN YOU NEED HIM? The Washington Post changed their headline on the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi THREE times:
First, he was “terrorist-in-chief”. Then he was “an austere religious scholar”. (I doubt the Post will disclose the conversations that led to that). Now it reads “extremist leader.”
Another self-inflicted legacy media wound. Keep blaming “dumb people”, “privileged white men, “deplorables”, Trump…anyone but themselves.
Can’t anybody here play this game?
**Update: Glenn Greenwald weighs in:**
JOE PAPPALARDO: Could Someone Actually Steal a U.S. Nuke? Even though nukes are heavily guarded and hard to hack, there are other, less obvious risks if they go rogue. “The eyes of the world have become fixed on the estimated 50 B61 nuclear bombs stored at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. As the Turkish military operations in Syria strain relations with the U.S., the security of the bombs has become a potential concern and a certain geopolitical headache. One unidentified senior U.S. official expressed worry to The New York Times that the bombs are being ‘held hostage’ by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: “The elimination of Al-Baghdadi is great news. [Trump] would have been better served by allowing the announcement to speak for itself rather than engaging in a lengthy victory lap. Less is more is never his thing.”
—Tweet by David Axelrod, today.
● Chaser: David Axelrod, President Obama’s Top Adviser, Defends Politicizing Bin Laden Raid.
—Headline, the Huffington Post, May 6, 2012.
● Hangover “As political slogans go, ‘General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead’ is truly excellent. Within the space of a bumper sticker, it sears into voters’ minds two accomplishments that President Obama most wants them to remember while casting doubt on Mitt Romney’s charges that Obama has mismanaged the economy and projected weakness abroad.”
—The Washington Post, November 2, 2012.
As Glenn Greenwald tweets, “It’s genuinely fascinating watching Democrats in real time struggle to figure out what to say about this. They want to be patriotic and anti-ISIS, but also need a way to malign Trump without contradicting their gushing Obama praise over OBL: not an easy balancing act. Good luck!”
DEMOCRAT-DOMINATED STATES SEEM TO HAVE INFRASTRUCTURE PROBLEMS: How San Francisco’s Salesforce Transit Center went from the Grand Central of the West to a $2.2 billion construction debacle.
TRUMP ON IF HE NOTIFIED PELOSI ABOUT AL-BAGHDADI RAID: I didn’t do that..I didn’t want to have people lost.
FLASHBACK: Stephen Preston, the CIA’s general counsel “wrote a memo addressing when the administration had to alert congressional leaders under a statute governing covert actions. Given the circumstances, the lawyers decided that the administration would be legally justified in delaying notification until after the raid.”
—“Secret lawyers’ meetings determined Osama bin Laden would be killed,” the New York Times, October 29, 2015. (Link goes to reprint at the Sydney Morning Herald, as original is behind the Times’ subscriber paywall.)
WASHINGTON POST, 800 YEARS AGO: Genghis Khan, beloved father to thousands, expert horsebreeder at helm of Mongolia, dies.
BILL KRISTOL HAS HIS SEVEN DAYS IN MAY MOMENT:
In October of 2018, as NewsBusters spotted, “On MSNBC, Rosie O’Donnell Suggests a Military Coup Against Trump.” The previous August, former comedienne turned far left activist Chelsea Handler called for “a military coup to overthrow Trump,” the New York Post reported. Glenn’s 2016 paper on military coups in the United States just keeps getting more timely!
LIKE CLOCKWORK, THE “ACTUALLY, IT’S BAD THAT BAGHDADI WAS KILLED ON TRUMP’S WATCH” REACTION HAS BEGUN:
● James Clapper on CNN: Baghdadi’s Death Could ‘Galvanize’ ISIS — We Can’t Stop Worrying.
● Washington Post headline: “Austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State dies at 48.”
As Ann Althouse writes regarding that last item, “It’s as though the paper is honoring him.”
Though to be fair, it doesn’t take much to become an “austere religious scholar” at the Post.
IN THE MAIL: From Andrew Wareham, The Breaking Storm (Innocent No More Series, Book 2).
Plus, browse today’s Lightning Deals and Deals of the Day.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I finished the Wareham book last night and enjoyed it very much, as I do pretty much all of his work.
MCGOVERN 2020: From (my moderate-liberal Democratic friend) Max Stearns: The Elizabeth Warren Fantasy. Worth reading, but not if asides hostile to Trump will ruin your day.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University of Michigan has spent $2.25 million on lawyers in two kangaroo-court lawsuits.
MICHAEL FLYNN’S LAWYER: Top FBI Officials Conspired To Entrap Ex-Trump National Security Adviser.