CATCH AND RELEASE, MIGRANTS HOUSED UNDER A BRIDGE AS OFFICIALS SOUND THE ALARM.
That alarm is so loud, even “Obama’s DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson Says ‘We Truly Are In A Crisis At The Border,’” Jeff Dunetz writes.
Archive for 2019
March 31, 2019
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Spygate: The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump.
March 30, 2019
SO I FINISHED S.M. STIRLING’S THEATER OF SPIES A WHILE BACK, and I realized I never posted any sort of review. Short version is I quite enjoyed it. It’s not as (perhaps overly) action-packed as the first book in the series, Black Chamber, which makes the espionage more realistic. Also, my mild frustration with the first book was that Stirling created his alternate USA, but the heroine spent most of her time doing things where we didn’t get a lot of the flavor of that alternate world. In this novel, you get a lot more of that sort of thing, which to me is half the fun of alternate-history novels. Recommended.
Now I’m rereading The Peshawar Lancers, which I’m liking just as much as the first time, and I wish that Stirling had written more novels in this setting.
UPDATE: From the comments: “Glenn, if you want to get the flavor of what Sarah Hoyt and Charlie Martin mean by ‘traditional publishing,’ the review on the Amazon page from Publisher’s Weekly of Peshawar Lancers is a perfectly gorge-buoying example.”
I hadn’t noticed that before, and boy is it awful.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Stirling weighs in in the comments below.
A CBS NEWS POLL:
ROGER SIMON: Trump Was Not Just Spied Upon But Entrapped.
21ST CENTURY FEMINISM: It’s not enough for women to succeed. Men must fail.
OPEN THREAD: Saturday night’s alright for commenting.
INCREDIBLE NEW DISCOVERY: The day the dinosaurs died.
Here’s a summary.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:
● Shot: “How does it happen that even today a couple of ordinary French stonemasons, or a carpenter and his apprentice, can put up a dovecote or a barn that has more architectural perfection than the piles of eclectic stupidity that grow up at the cost of millions of dollars on the campuses of American universities?”
—Thomas Merton, “The Seven Story Mountain,” via Maggie’s Farm, (which, as always, is loaded with links today.)
● Chaser: “We all know the look: that sleek, simple, even utilitarian aesthetic that unites IKEA furniture, smartphones, office buildings and office furniture, and more. The ubiquitous minimalism that some defend as honest and accessible – and others criticize as sterile and lacking in identity – defines many of the products we own and the commercial spaces we occupy. Capitalism has been good to this aesthetic, which has its origins, ironically, in a very anti-capitalist art movement: Bauhaus, which turns 100 this year.”
—“A Century Later, Capitalism Is a Boon for Bauhaus,” Marlo Safi, NRO today.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Yes, there is collusion – between NBC, MSNBC and Dems.
New York Magazine and HuffPost contributor Yashar Ali is accusing Dafna Linzer, the managing editor for political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC, of trying to “bully” him to help Democrats. While Ali leans and works left, he has a good reputation for being an honest broker – even among conservatives. His complaints lit up Twitter Friday.
Ali devoted a 25-tweet thread to criticizing the actions Linzer. Ali said Linzer called to “bully” him “on behalf of the DNC” (the Democratic National Committee). He slammed her actions as “highly inappropriate and unethical.”
As T. Beckett Adams of the Washington Examiner asked yesterday on Twitter, “If MSNBC’s news chief is willing to go to bat like this on behalf of the Democratic National Committee for something that really doesn’t matter, I wonder what she does for the things that are of actual political consequence?”
And will any of the network talking heads discuss this story tomorrow?
AT AMAZON, spring savings in Car Care.
SO WHO’S GOING AFTER BIDEN NOW? Flashback:
Chozick writes that the Clinton campaign, which she covered from the beginning, had reacted furiously to the prospect of a Joe Biden run, as floated first in an August 2015 Maureen Dowd Times column and then in a reported story by Chozick. In the book, she writes that “Biden had confided (off the record) to the White House press corps that he wanted to run, but he added something like ‘You guys don’t understand these people. The Clintons will try to destroy me.’”
True.
From early on, the Clinton camp saw Trump as an enemy to encourage, Chozick writes. During the campaign, as had been previously reported, there was an effort to elevate Trump into a so-called Pied Piper in order to tie him to the mainstream of the Republican Party.
“An agenda for an upcoming campaign meeting sent by [Campaign Manager] Robby Mook’s office asked, ‘How do we maximize Trump?’” Chozick writes, describing a time when the GOP primary was still crowded. . . .
By the time of the conventions, though, as Trump was selected as the Republican nominee, the Clinton campaign was still trying to figure out how to improve her negative favorability ratings.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Rachel Maddow’s Deep Delusion. “The MSNBC host staged a hell of a drama during the Mueller probe, but life usually isn’t a John le Carre novel.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Trump Orders Feds to Prep for EMP Attack.
IT’S THE NEW SHIMMER OF THE AMERICAN LEFT: “The Southern Poverty Law Center Is Both a Terrible Place to Work and a Place That Does Terrible Work,” Robby Soave writes at Reason.
Speaking of which, “Mississippi man pleads guilty in ‘Vote Trump’ church arson,” CBS-affiliate WREG reported yesterday:
A member of a black church in Mississippi has pleaded guilty to burning the church, which was also spray painted with the slogan “Vote Trump,” a week before the 2016 presidential election.
Andrew McClinton, 47, pleaded guilty to arson Thursday, the Delta Democrat-Times reported. His sentencing is set for late April.
Investigators said McClinton belonged to Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, which was vandalized and burned.
Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, who is also the state fire marshal, told The Associated Press that investigators believe the graffiti was intended as a distraction from some other sort of wrongdoing. Chaney would not specify what that was.
“He tried to make the arson appear it was politically motivated, but it was not,” Chaney said.
As Wall Street Journal contributor Jeryl Bier tweets, “This is the hoax incident that the Southern Poverty Law Center used as the lead anecdote in its post 2016 election hate report.”
Related: CNN Finally Covers SPLC Racism Scandal, Leaves Out ‘Hate Group’ Lawsuits, Jussie Smollett Connection.
(Classical reference in headline.)
WHEN TERRORISTS WIN: In New Zealand, a Democracy Turns Against Itself.
SPRING FASCISM PREVIEW:
● Shot: World cities turn off lights to mark Earth Hour.
—AP, today.
● Chaser: Venezuela returns to ‘Middle Ages’ during power outages.
—Agence France-Presse, Thursday.
● Related: Crisis in Venezuela a Matter of ‘Life or Death,’ ‘Liberty or Dictatorship,’ Says Interim First Lady.
—PJ Media, yesterday.
(Classical — and possibly NSFW — reference in headline.)
