MICHAEL BARONE: Collusiongate: R.I.P. “This is not what you expected if you’ve been watching CNN or MSNBC or reading the New York Times or the Washington Post these past two years. Their viewers and readers have been savoring the prospect of Donald Trump being frog-marched out of the White House, on his way to prison, with the smirk wiped off his face. Now it’s clear that’s not going to happen.”
Archive for 2019
March 29, 2019
BILL WHITTLE: The Mueller Investigation: Mission Accomplished.
Watch the whole thing.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Hiwassee College to close after 170 years due to financial reasons.
DRAINING THE SWAMP: Michael Anton reviews John Marini’s Unmasking The Administrative State. Excerpt:
The bureaucrats who operate the machinery of the administrative state are, for the most part, merely crew. The pilots are those whom some (though not Marini) have taken to calling the “deep state.” But a simpler name for them is Angelo Codevilla’s “ruling class”: the people who revolve in and out of senior government, and lucrative private sector, positions; run the hedge funds, big banks and other corporations; set the tone and agenda for all society; and tell the administrative state what to do, either directly or indirectly. One might say that the deep state and the administrative state are a kind of coalition or partnership, though the former is most definitely the senior partner.
The bureaucrats, their bosses, and their cultural cheerleaders are prone to delusional thinking in order to mask, even to themselves, the essential self-interestedness of their rule.
Yes, that delusional thinking is a key aspect of a lot of our current politics.
IF IT MOVES, TAX IT. IF IT KEEPS MOVING, TAX IT. IF IT STOPS MOVING, TAX IT SOME MORE. Proposed NY Real Estate Tax Called ‘Disaster’ for Already Lagging Market.
The “pied-à-terre” tax, part of Democratic state lawmakers’ budget proposals, would target out of state residents and some New Yorkers who buy property valued at over $5 million. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo support the tax.
State senator Brad Hoylman, a fan of socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and co-sponsor of legislation that legalized abortion in New York up until the moment of birth, originally introduced the tax in 2014.
The proposal comes at a time of lagging real estate prices. Last year, the real estate market had its worst year since the financial crisis, as sales fell by 14 percent. In 2018 the median price for an apartment in Manhattan “fell below $1 million for the first time in three years,” CNBC reported.
The pied-à-terre tax would further cause a “dramatic drop” on real estate values in New York, according to an analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal.
The tax ranges between 0.5 percent to 4 percent on homes valued at $5 million and above. Proponents of the tax say it would raise up to $650 million in revenue per year, though the Journal‘s analysis found it would raise just $471 million.
“The tax is a disaster,” one apartment owner told the Journal. “If you actually put the tax in place, you would massively reduce the value of real estate.”
Real estate brokers told Bloomberg a pied-à-terre tax is “class warfare” on the rich.
Nah. The rich can always just leave.
PROCUREMENT: Navy’s $7.8 Billion Destroyer Due for Delivery 5 Years Late.
Even adjusting for inflation, that’s almost Nimitz-class aircraft carrier money.
INSIDE THE VIKING SKY CRUISE SHIP RESCUE: “Jansen said he’s used to training in poor weather conditions but had never experienced a mission of ‘this magnitude’ before.” Not many have.
EVERY LEFTY “BENEFIT” IS ALSO INTENDED TO SERVE AS A TOOL FOR CONTROL: How Universal Basic Income Could Be Used to Suppress Free Speech.
ILLITERATE AND DISHONEST — SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT: Biden’s Attack On ‘White Man’s Culture’ Is A Mix Of Historical Illiteracy And Dishonesty. “The former vice president still owes Clarence Thomas an apology.”
Those who demand acts of contrition over “English jurisprudential culture,” seem to have a problem with ideals of blind justice and due process that stop us from sacrificing people to the whims of an aggrieved mob. Biden’s transgression against progressivism, as far as I can tell, was affirming to Thomas during the Hill hearings that, “from the beginning and at this moment, until the end, the presumption [of innocence] is with you.” It wasn’t true.
Though it’s quite puzzling why the former vice president laments the “white” cultural evils of American jurisprudence when mentioning his role in the Thomas Supreme Court hearings. Perhaps confessing racial guilt is merely a form of ritual self-flagellation these days. Then again, it was Biden, with the assistance of a bunch of other white men, helped smear a black man with an impeccable record and no corroborating evidence of wrongdoing simply because he held the wrong kind of views. It was to Biden that Thomas was responding when he famously called the hearings a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you.”
If anything, Biden should be apologizing to Thomas.
It’s never too late to say you’re sorry.
YET ANOTHER REASON WHY QUALIFIED IMMUNITY SHOULD BE ABOLISHED: California Cops Who Allegedly Stole Over $225,000 Can’t Be Sued, Federal Court Rules.
I REMEMBER A LOT OF PEOPLE CONFIDENTLY TELLING ME THAT TRUMP’S LEGAL TEAM HAD NO IDEA WHAT IT WAS DOING: How Trump Dodged A Special Counsel Interview — And A Subpoena Fight. “The president’s legal team asked, ‘What evidence have you obtained that justifies you interviewing the president?’ according the person, who added that Mueller’s office was ‘never able to articulate a compelling case. They never gave up asking, but they had no good answer for that question.’”
That’s because they had nothing, and knew they had nothing, and Trump’s lawyers knew they had nothing, and knew that they knew that they had nothing. And stuck to their guns.
GOOD NEWS: How Humanity Won The War On Famine.
HOW HAVE YOU LIVED WITHOUT THIS? Ka-Bar Tactical Spork (Spoon Fork Knife) Tool.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: FIRE CURTAINS: “The damage of the last two years was real but it’s important to realize that it was limited by the fire curtains of the law and the constitution. It kept people sane where the flames of madness was all about. Far from being a hundred year old document nobody reads any more the constitution saved the ship.” This time.
VIRGINIA CLOWN SHOW CONTINUES: VCU student accuses former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder of sexual harassment. “The woman, Sydney Black, 22, said Wilder, 88, also suggested she could live at his house and offered to take her on foreign trips and pay for her law school in 2017, while she still worked as an office assistant at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.”
OPEN THREAD: Go for it.
THIS ARTICLE HAS IT WRONG: TRUMP WON’T BE CAMPAIGNING ON THE MUELLER REPORT, HE’LL BE CAMPAIGNING AGAINST THE PRESS.
Trump allies see Barr’s letter as a kind of Swiss Army knife—a tool useful in all kinds of situations. Not only is it exculpatory, they say, but it also implicitly rebukes the press for its coverage of the Russia investigation, inoculating Trump from any future scandal that reporters might unearth. According to a source familiar with internal discussions at the Republican National Committee and the pro-Trump super PAC America First, both organizations are “geared up for any nonsense to come.”
They’re already prepared to attack reporters. “Any reporter who tries that will be hit with 30-second spots of all their ridiculous claims about collusion,” said the source, who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to describe private conversations. “Their tweets have all been screencapped. It’s all ready to go.” (“It’s the same thing we’ve been doing the last two years. We’re going to hold the media accountable when we see fit,” an RNC official clarified, adding that this would include digital clips shared on social media.)
Earlier this week, Trump’s campaign previewed the in-your-face tactics they have in mind. A campaign official sent a letter to TV producers cautioning them against booking certain guests who had alleged that Trump colluded with Russia, including Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.
“It’s not hard to figure where we’re going to go with this,” a current campaign official told The Atlantic. “We’re still in victory-lap mode, but it will turn into a message that [Democrats] will say or do anything to stop us from making America great again, including making up lies about the president and ruining a lot of people’s lives.”
Well, the nice thing about that argument is that it’s true. And Trump will treat the press like it’s made up of Democratic operatives with bylines, which is also true.
BRET STEPHENS LOOKS BACK ON COLLUSION-GATE: “Maybe, in fact, Trump is the genius he claims to be, possessed — as he likes to boast — of a ‘very good brain.'”
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Smoking marijuana while pregnant may raise risks for baby.
ANNALS OF FAKE NEWS: BBC pays damages to Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko over report. “The apology relates to an incorrect report claiming a payment was made to extend a meeting between Mr Poroshenko and US President Donald Trump. An article, published last May but since removed from the BBC website, alleged $400,000 was paid to Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. The allegation, relating to a meeting in June 2017, was untrue.”
Trump’s having quite a week.