Archive for 2019

TALONS OVER SAN ANTONIO: USAF T-38C Talons assigned to the 560th Flying Training Squadron, fly as part of a 4-ship formation. The planes are returning to Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph after conducting instructor pilot training over South Texas.

AS ALWAYS, LIFE IMITATES THE BABYLON BEE:

Shot: Obama Canceled After Activists Dig Up Old Presidential Campaign Where He Opposed Gay Marriage.

—The Satiric* Babylon Bee, Thursday.

Chaser:

Writers bashed former President Barack Obama after he criticized “woke” social justice warriors during a speech Tuesday.

Obama spoke at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago and hit back at alleged activists who attack other people on the internet because of their “flaws,” according to the former president. His comments saw bipartisan support, but some liberals disagreed with his thought that this rhetoric is “not activism.”

Journalist Ernest Owens wrote that he “gasped” when he heard Obama’s comments and called the former president’s views that of a “boomer” in an op-ed featured in The New York Times Friday.

“But the former president’s disdain for the kind of criticism that has become popular to dismiss as ‘cancel culture’ … is misguided,” Ernst wrote, adding:

“His eagerness to dismiss one part of what happens when young people stand up for what they believe in as “casting stones” is a reminder of a largely generational divide about whether it’s impolite to speak out in favor of the most vulnerable among us and the world we’d like to live in. While there’s some debate about which generation Mr. Obama belongs to, he’s solidly in the older camp.”

Writers Bash Obama For Criticizing ‘Woke’ Social Justice Warriors, the Daily Caller, yesterday.

(And don’t get Barry started on what he thinks about doomsday environmentalists, either.)

* Sorry for misspelling “America’s Newspaper of Record” there.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT BARRY: It’s been 10 years since the “workplace violence” at Fort Hood. Can we finally hold President Obama accountable for his callous response?

WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF VIOLENCE? Baton attack during June protests in downtown Portland lands man in prison for nearly six years:

A 24-year-old man who hit another man over the head with a baton in June during dueling downtown Portland demonstrations was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison.

Gage Halupowski pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in connection with the June 29 attack on Adam Kelly outside The Nines Hotel along Southwest Morrison Street. Halupowski was identified as one of several masked, black-clothed demonstrators seen on video hitting and pepper-spraying Kelly after he appeared to come to the aid of another man who’d been attacked during the protests, authorities said.

Kelly, a right-wing protestor at the demonstrations, wrote on Facebook at the time that the blows to his head led to him suffering a concussion and needing 25 staples to close the wounds.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Melissa Marrero said Halupowski hitting Kelly in the back of the head with an expandable baton was “completely unexplainable, completely avoidable and didn’t need to happen.”

* * * * * * * * *

Halupowski was one of three people arrested during rival demonstrations between far-right and anti-fascist groups on June 23. Police at one point declared the protests a civil disturbance.

At least eight people were injured, including three police officers and conservative writer Andy Ngo.

Earlier: Nancy Pelosi tells 2020 Dems, “You have to be ready to take a punch. And therefore you have to be ready to throw a punch—for the children.” And other examples of leftist violence and violent rhetoric at the link.

BONFIRE OF THE VANITY FAIR: BETO DROPS OUT. At Ricochet, Jon Gabriel writes:

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke began his presidential run with a Vanity Fair cover photo by Annie Leibovitz. It proved to be the high-water mark of his campaign.

Since then, Beto’s run has been a comedy of errors. A Kerouac-style vision quest driving aimlessly around the country that he journaled on his web diary. Instagramming a gross dental appointment. Leaping on tables, windmilling his arms, and shouting about the promise of hope to help change what is possible for the future of hopeful promises.

Gassing on about vagaries made him a media darling when he was up against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But on the big stage he seemed, and still seems, shocked that the parade marched on without him. From weak debates to stump flubs to utter policy cluelessness, some white male billionaires just can’t catch a break.

At Hot Air, Allahpundit adds:

Golly. Between the Harris news and this, today’s turned out to be an embarrassment of schadenfreudean riches!

I’m sure Beto’s political future will be fine. He can go back to Texas now and run on [checks notes] confiscating guns and taxing churches.

Oh, and tearing down the border fence near El Paso.

* * * * * * * * *

His other legacy is that, unusually for a candidate who flamed out so early in the process, he may have done his party lasting damage. Chris Coons complained after O’Rourke’s call for confiscating guns at the September debate that the clip would be used against Democrats for years to come as evidence of their true intentions in regulating firearms. The same is true of O’Rourke’s interest in punishing churches by taxing them for their sin against wokeness in opposing same-sex unions. His role in the campaign ultimately was to confirm conservatives’ worst suspicions about the liberal id. Maybe uniquely among this year’s field, he did his tribe more harm than good by running.

At his rally last night, Trump was quoted as saying, “Beto wasn’t smart. Couldn’t handle it. I told my wife, See? It’s not so easy. I told my great first lady, who people love…When Beto quit like, he quit like a dog. When he quit I said see, people think this is easy. This isn’t easy.”

Quit like a dog? Well, a furry at least.

And Beto can’t even catch a break on the way out: “How fitting is it that Beto appropriates Latino culture one more time by killing his presidential campaign on The Day of the Dead?”

SOUNDS PLAUSIBLE TO ME. KIND OF LIKE WHEN WE WERE SITTING AT PETE’S KITCHEN LATE AT NIGHT, AND THE POLICEMAN AT THE NEXT TABLE HAD HIS RADIO CRACKLE ON TO INFORM HIM SOME MAN WAS GOING BACK INTO SOME ALLEY WITH A SWORD TO KILL WEREWOLVES.  Michigan woman claims to be a werewolf after biting friend’s ear off.

I mean… it’s either werewolves or meth, and meth doesn’t make great urban fantasy novels.

WHEN THE DEMOCRATS WAVE THE FLAG IT’S A SURE THING THEY’RE ABOUT TO RIP THE CONSTITUTION TO SHREDS:  This ‘Impeachment’ Is a Cover-Up.

PS- Go home, Nancy, you’re drunk.

LET’S GO ALL OUT. GIVE HIM THE BIRDIE TOO:  Bye-Bye Beto.

OPEN THREAD: I don’t know what the boss is talking about. In this house Christmas decorations aren’t even thought about till the day after Thanksgiving. (Rumors they usually go up Christmas Eve because I’m writing and forget and the rest of the family are just as bad are vile calumny. Also usually completely accurate.)