GREAT MOMENTS IN PANDERING: Kirsten Gillibrand cuts loose in a gay bar in Iowa, sipping a shot and modeling her Pride Month T-shirt.
Archive for 2019
June 8, 2019
SO THIS IS BASICALLY A HATE CRIME, RIGHT? A libertarian student’s picture didn’t make it into the yearbook. But Karl Marx did.
AT AMAZON, save on Wheels and Tires.
DISPATCHES FROM THE PALACE GUARD: Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat, Admits He Stood Down During Obama Years (Sound Familiar?)
Just think of comedians as Democratic Party operatives with punchlines, and it all makes sense.
AND TOO MANY OF THEM ARE OKAY WITH THAT: Academics ignore the anniversary of 1984 because they know they’re living it out.
SPIES ARE THE NEW JOURNALISTS:
Before becoming a national security analyst for CNN, former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, had previously been a news item himself after lying to Congress in 2013 when he testified that the NSA wasn’t collecting data on Americans. He later provided inconsistent testimony to Congress in 2017 when he said he had not spoken with the press about the Steele dossier while he was DNI and then admitted he’d spoken with future CNN colleague Jake Tapper about it.
Other members of CNN’s shadow intelligence organization include Josh Campbell, one-time special assistant to ex-FBI Director James Comey, and CIA official Philip Mudd. What qualifies them as journalists, as opposed to Assange? They worked in the intelligence community.
CNN rival NBC/MSNBC features an even more formidable roster of spooks. At the top is John Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. During his time at the helm of the CIA, the agency spied on Congress, lied about it and finally got outed by an internal report forcing Brennan to issue apologies to the senators who had been targets of the intelligence operation. “The C.I.A. unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into the Senate Intelligence Committee computers,” Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall wrote at the time. In a statement calling on Brennan to resign, Udall wrote: “This grave misconduct not only is illegal but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers” and called the episode evidence of “a tremendous failure of leadership.”
Another NBC contributor is former CIA analyst Ned Price, who as Obama national security staff spokesman misled the U.S. press and public regarding Obama administration policy.
NBC reporter Ken Dilanian said of the WikiLeaks founder: “Many believe that if [Assange] ever was a journalist, those days ended a long time ago.” Others have said the same of Dilanian, based on a 2014 report showing that the NBC journalist was sending his articles to CIA headquarters for fact-checking.
Wait, I thought narcs were the new journalists: Vox Reporter and YouTube Censorship Advocate Carlos Maza Defended Antifa, Encouraged Political Violence.
But then, as Freddie deBoer warned a few years ago, “The woke world is a world of snitches, informants, rats. Go to any space concerned with social justice and what will you find? Endless surveillance. Everybody is to be judged. Everyone is under suspicion. Everything you say is to be scoured, picked over, analyzed for any possible offense. Everyone’s a detective in the Division of Problematics, and they walk the beat 24/7. You search and search for someone Bad doing Bad Things, finding ways to indict writers and artists and ordinary people for something, anything. That movie that got popular? Give me a few hours and 800 words. I’ll get you your indictments. That’s what liberalism is, now — the search for baddies doing bad things, like little offense archaeologists, digging deeper and deeper to find out who’s Good and who’s Bad. I wonder why people run away from establishment progressivism in droves.”
I don’t think the German filmmakers who helmed The Lives of Others in 2006 intended it to be a how-to guide for the coming woke era.
BY BEING DELICIOUS: Asian American Chefs Are Embracing Spam. But How Did the Canned Meat Make Its Way Into Their Cultures? “The Asian regions that were introduced to Spam weren’t the only places where the meat showed up in the post-war years. In Britain, during the economic hardship that followed WWII, Spam was an affordable alternative to fresh meat. But, Ku says, as its popularity there waned, the British contributed to many stereotypes people now have about Spam — notably, thanks to the Monty Python sketch that famously highlights the ubiquity of the meat. In the Asia-Pacific region, however, Ku says that locals never had an opportunity to make fun of Spam.”
Though I was always more of a Treet man.
DAVID DRAKE UPDATE: I finished David Drake’s latest RCN novel, To Clear Away The Shadows. Despite lacking all the original characters — it’s sort of a side story — I found it quite entertaining. I wasn’t disappointed at all, though I confess to wondering what Leary and Mundy are up to.
GREAT MOMENTS IN FILM CRITICISM: Critic Slams Secret Life 2 for Praising Marriage, Masculinity.
Other critics toil for allegedly neutral sites but heap their political baggage onto the readers’ laps. Which brings us to TheWrap.com.
The site’s review of “The Secret Life of Pets 2” must be read to be fully believed. The film sequel follows the further adventures of Max (Patton Oswalt), Gidget (Jenny Slate) and Duke (Eric Stonestreet).
The site’s review reads like a parody of the trend under discussion. A kiddie film, we’re told, isn’t acceptable unless it checks a set number of cultural boxes.
“The Secret Life of Pets 2,” on the other hand … effectively acts as an animated ode to heteronormativity, toxic masculinity and patriarchal worldviews, passed off as harmless plot points to entertain young audiences.
This is a children’s movie review, mind you.
As David Thompson responds, “It occurs to me that when the reviewer of a children’s cartoon is whining at length about a lack of discernibly gay pet-owning couples and the oppressive ‘heteronormativity’ of a character choosing to get married and have a child – an act that is ‘conservative’ and therefore bad, apparently – then the problem isn’t the film.”
HE’S BAAACCKK! Milo Yiannopoulos named marshal for ‘Straight Pride’ parade.
AYN RAND DIDN’T INTEND FOR THE RETURN OF THE PRIMITIVE TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: “Back in 1992, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson warned of the dangers of feminism, predicting that it would induce ‘women to leave their husbands. . . .practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.’ Many of today’s witches” — not least those “who publicly hexed then-Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh” — “would happily agree.”
Read the whole thing. As Glenn likes to say, the 21st century isn’t turning out as I had hoped.
THEN: SILICON VALLEY PEOPLE ARE SUPERDUPER SMART. Now: YouTube deletes award-winning history teacher’s World War II videos in ‘hate speech’ purge.
Most of our institutions are run by idiots. Sure, they’re mostly what Nassim Taleb calls “Intellectual Yet Idiots,” but on the output end there’s not a lot of difference, though they achieve a level of creativity in their idiocy that run-of-the-mill idiots can only envy.
ADVICE FOR TOUGH SITUATIONS: How to Tell a Loved One They’re Coiling Cables Wrong.
TO BE FAIR, MELTDOWNS ARE KIND OF THEIR THING: Kyle Smith: Why Trump’s critics had a royal meltdown over his visit with the Queen.
AT AMAZON, Lightning Deal, Godinger Cigar Glass – Old Fashioned Whiskey Glass With Indented Cigar Rest.
IT’S NICE TO HAVE, IF YOU CAN’T BRING AN ACTUAL GUN TO YOUR GUNFIGHT: Using .22 Magnum for Self-Defense.
WAPO: YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHICH PARTY IS ON THE DEFENSIVE OVER ABORTION.
One party certainly deserves to be on the defensive over their rush to the extreme on abortion, especially this week. Give the Washington Post credit for pointing it out this morning. After hectoring Joe Biden into a series of reversals over the broadly popular prohibition on federal funding of abortions, the Democratic Party has become hostile to any pro-life candidate and voter.
Now they are facing a potential revolt in states that Democrats need to defeat Donald Trump, Paul Kane reports[.]
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Alabama even released a video of the donor’s name being removed from the sign.
WHINE, WHINE, WHINE: Summer is sexist: Women have to sweat ‘bikini bodies,’ hair removal, camp and crime.
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?
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Much as I admire Morrissey’s refusal to conform, I don’t much like his music.
Too many of the Smiths’ songs feel like brilliant backing tracks with vocals plastered on haphazardly afterwards. None more so than their best-known song, 1985’s “How Soon is Now,” whose sharp tremolo and Eventide Harmonizer-laden guitars are marred by Morrissey’s moping vocals, which have little to do with the music underneath.
This could potentially put Oberlin, already financially imperiled, out of business.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Can I Learn To Love Yoga?
WE NEED A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF CUBS GAMES UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THERE: Will She Be Banned for Life Too? D-Day National Anthem Singer Flashes ‘Black Power’ Salute at Cubs Game.