IF ONLY THIS WERE THE GENERAL ATTITUDE: Smoke, Drink and Eat What You Want, Norway’s Public Health Minister Says.
Given the dreadful — and often deadly — record of government nutrition advice in my lifetime this is entirely sensible. Naturally, all the best people are outraged.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Why did Democrats invite a hate preacher into Congress?
The Republicans are the party of racists and religious bigots, and the Democrats are the party of anti-racists and religious tolerance. That’s why 21 Democrats from the almost entirely Democratic Congressional Black Caucus refused to comment when it emerged in 2018 that in 2005 they had met secretly with Louis Farrakhan. He, of course, was at it again on Thursday night, eliciting a vast and telling silence from CBC members with racist incitement against ‘Satanic Jews’.
That’s also why Eddie Bernice-Johnson, a Democrat from Texas who is one of the CBC members who declines to explain why she met with Farrakhan in 2005, invited Imam Omar Suleiman to read a prayer ‘for unity, not division’ in the House of Representatives on Thursday morning — a prayer which elicited a touching tweet of gratitudes from paragons of unity Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour.
Suleiman is the very model of a progressive preacher. That’s why Eddie Bernice-Johnson praised him on Friday as someone who, in ‘times of struggle’, has ‘time and again used his voice to call for peace & justice’. He just hates gays, sexual equality, and the Jewish state. Imagine the outcry if he had been invited by a Republican.
Related: Valerie Plame, Who Worried About ‘America’s Jews,’ Is Running for Congress.
THE CULTURE WAR IS GLOBAL: Call for students to film ‘biased’ teachers brings Brazil’s culture wars to classroom.
LIGHTNING DEAL: Up to 40% Off Women’s Watches for Mother’s Day.
WAIT, WHAT? US government records $160.3 billion April surplus. Note that revenues are at an all-time high. But the projected deficit for the year is huge, because spending is at an all-time higher.
BETTER THAT THEY SHOULD BE VICTIMS? Students who tackle shooters die as heroes. Some experts worry ‘we’re setting our kids up to be martyrs.’ “”We’re asking children to make executive decisions, life-and-death decisions.” We’re not asking them to. Life is forcing them to. And this isn’t unusual, but rather — since these “children” are teenagers — the norm for human existence. You could join the Roman legions at 14.
OPEN THREAD: It’s Friday.
A REMINDER FOR THE SUMMER SEASON: Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning. “Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life.”
YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Is Beto Done Already?
It’s pretty remarkable to see a publication like Politico turn on Beto like this. But then, he’s currently trailing his smarter, gayer rival Pete Buttigieg in the polls. Apparently, just being a white guy under 50 who avoids suit jackets isn’t enough anymore.* He’s even bombing in front of 8th graders. Nothing is going right.
We’re still 18 months from the worst election since the last one, of course. Another Democrat throws his or her hat into the ring every other day. Nobody knows what will happen, least of all me. But if Beto has indeed peaked already, if this is as good as it gets for him, I’m sure our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters will never admit that we were right about him all along.
As Jim Geraghty asked last week, Where Was All of This Skepticism about Beto Last Year?
SOUNDS LIKE A CRAZY IDEA, BUT HEY: Wait, Maybe Judges Shouldn’t Work for the Prosecutors After All. “Of all the many oddities and unfairness baked into administrative proceedings, the one most surprising to casual observers (read—my wife), is the fact that many administrative law judges (ALJs) are employed by the same agency prosecuting alleged violations of law in front of them. Indeed, in the bizarre world of administrative law, one must get used to the notion that the judge works for the prosecutor. But still, we pretend that there is nothing wrong with this setup. A new decision by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, however, has provided some much-needed sanity to this discussion and concluded the obvious, ‘[I]t is beyond question that judges may not adjudicate cases involving’ an agency that is even ‘their prospective employer[].'”
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21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Dear Wives: Publicly Criticizing Your Husband Makes You Look Horrible. “After reading the latest installment in the ‘my husband disappoints me’ genre in The New York Times last weekend — this one penned by a clinical psychologist — I’d say we have a trend.”
Publicly trashing your husband is a profound betrayal performed for the sake of a little bit of approval from the in-group. So it’s perfect for feminists.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: An elderly man is dead after a young woman makes false accusation of sexual assault against him.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE GRADUATES: Student graduates, becomes Marine Corps major in the same week. “It may sound odd to say, but law school has been some of the easiest years of my life.” Well, before law school he was a company commander in Afghanistan. I notice that while people who come straight from college think law school is super-hard and demanding, people who come in from the military tend to be unfazed.
UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!
DISPATCHES FROM A REMARKABLY SCANDAL-FREE ADMINISTRATION: Former Rap Star To Be Charged With Accepting Foreign Donations for Obama Super PAC.
DAVID BROOKS: Democrats Are “Making A Terrible Mistake” On Contempt, Destroying Checks And Balances.
This constitutional crisis is just for show. Partly the Democrats want the show because it just feels good to bash the administration. “This has had a cathartic effect on the Democrats because we have finally been able to find a way to fight back at the obstructionism,” Representative Jamie Raskin told my Times colleague Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
Partly they are trying to appease the wing of the party that is calling for impeachment right away. The party leaders generally opposed impeachment for sensible reasons. It would be impossible to win a conviction in the Senate without some Republican cooperation and overwhelming popular support — which doesn’t exist. It’s much better for the Democrats if they focus media attention on their presidential candidates. A Trump vs. Nadler media war is exactly what Trump wants.
The problem with any policy of appeasement is that it rarely appeases; it only emboldens. And that’s what’s happening. You can feel the atmosphere in the Democratic Party changing, getting more passionate, getting more caught up in the back-and-forth combat with Trump, getting more whipped up into impeachment furor.
A bunch of needless “But Trump did it first!” stuff aside, when Brooks is right, he’s right.
FEATURE NOT A BUG: Dems’ Campaign Finance Bill Could Be a Privacy Nightmare.
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