Archive for 2020
January 16, 2020
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: The Granny Wine Box Traveling Impeachment Circus Heads to the Senate. “The impeachment of the president should be a solemn undertaking. Pelosi and Co. have turned it into a tawdry extended photo-op, complete with tacky souvenir tchotchkes.”
Are you not entertained?
A FIRST-PASS ANSWER IS “NEVER.” “When Will They Admit They’re Wrong?”
Plus: “It’s a bitter pill but here’s the truth, the real deal: it’s about emotion. It’s about rationalization, and wow, are humans talented at rationalizing whatever we have chosen to commit to. Once we have, it seems perfectly sensible to us and divergent views look wrong. There may, in fact, be a clear right and wrong side to a political issue, one that would be obvious to a disinterested observer; but you and I are not disinterested observers. We’re inside the social machinery and it’s well-nigh impossible to take a colorful pill and step out.”
This is why, in my opinion, the realm of politics should be kept as small as possible. And I’m not wrong.
IRANIANS ATTACK THE AYATOLLAH REGIME — THEIR REAL ENEMY: My latest Creators Syndicate column.
Since December 2017, deeply aggrieved Iranian citizens have publicly denounced two blatantly linked injustices perpetrated by the corrupt ayatollah regime: the clerical dictatorship’s hideous corruption and Iran’s acute economic deterioration.
Iran’s Islamic revolutionary dictatorship is a case study in repeated failure, incompetence, corruption and mass murder.
The Iranian people are now responding with splendid ferocity.
Voice of America News reports that instead of chanting, “Death to America,” Iranians in Tehran chant: “You are tyrants. Don’t call us seditioners.”
According to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Persian language broadcast unit, Radio Farda, on Jan. 13, protesters in Isfahan Industrial University chanted, “Execution and imprisonment no longer scare us.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is funded by the U.S. government. Radio Free Europe is definitely not a Cold War relic.
Protestors in Tehran and western Iran have been heard chanting, “Death to the dictator,” meaning Ayatollah Khamenei.
He is the IRGC’s mob boss.
A Twitter video clip shows protestors in Tehran chanting: “They are lying that our enemy is America. Our enemy is right here.”
Peruse the entire essay.
LIGHTNING LINEUP: F-35A Lightning IIs taxi during an exercise at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Jan. 6, 2020.
“CNN’S ANTI-TRUMP BIAS IS SO INTENSE, THEY CAN’T EVEN BROADCAST A SYMPATHETIC INTERVIEW FOR HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE:” CNN nixes Mike Pence-Wolf Blitzer Israel interview, citing impeachment.
SHOULD BUT WON’T: The US government should stop demanding tech companies compromise on encryption.
Related: FBI reportedly accessed locked iPhone 11 Pro Max with GrayKey third party tool.
The Feds don’t seem to have much trouble breaking into devices when they have a warrant. So I’m forced to conclude that they want official backdoors built in — which opens everyone up to all kinds of easy attacks — to easily get into devices when they don’t have a warrant.
WHEN YOUR DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IS GETTING HAMMERED IN ROLLING STONE: CNN’s Debate Performance Was Villainous and Shameful.
To be fair, “villainous and shameful” isn’t actually a departure for them these days.
AS A WISE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ONCE SAID, ELECTIONS MATTER: Judge Rules Against Donna Quixote.
AT AMAZON, Deal of the Day, Save on Vitamins.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST: Warren pledges to cancel most student loan debt without Congress.
TRYING TO INCITE DEMOCRATS TO MURDER? Iran Video Stages Assassination of Trump, Pompeo, Netanyahu.
I mean, it’s not like that’s much of a stretch.
IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME: On this day in 1883, President Chester Arthur signed into law the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, thus abolishing the federal “spoils” system and creating a civil service based on … uh … merit.
Just three years prior to becoming President, Arthur had been Collector of the Port of New York, which made him NYC’s grand poobah of political patronage. He was the last person on Earth one would expect to be the angel of death for the old way of doing things.
But Arthur had ascended to the Presidency after a disappointed job seeker assassinated President James Garfield. Americans were hellbent on getting civil service reform and feared Arthur would stand in their way. Arthur, ever the politician, enjoyed pleasantly surprising them.
The “spoils” system (called that by its detractors) had a lot of faults. But its virtue was that job holders tended to actually believe in President’s agenda. And if they didn’t or weren’t doing a good job, it was easy to get rid of them. The system that replaced it has both virtues and vices too. But as time goes by, its vices are increasingly on display.
BETHANY MANDEL: On National Review’s (Several) Disgraceful Swipes at Jews.
Read the whole thing.
WOULDN’T BE THE FIRST TIME A BERNIE GUY TRIED POLITICAL ASSASSINATION: New Footage of Bernie Staffer Emerges — Reveals People Thought He Might Try to Kill Trump.
Related: Bernie is not normal. Neither are his supporters.
PARIAH NATION: Iran warns Europe as diplomat says officials ‘lied’ on crash. “The downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight last week came amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. over its unraveling nuclear deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for the first time Wednesday threatened Europe by warning its soldiers in the Mideast ‘could be in danger’ over the crisis as Britain, France and Germany launched a measure that could see United Nations sanctions re-imposed on Tehran.”
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders accuse each other of lying in post-debate confrontation.
More here: “Sanders supporters immediately flooded Twitter with images likening Warren to a snake. Warren defenders hurled back charges of misogyny, an accusation that plagued Sanders’ 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton. Those caught between them despaired.”
And Joe Biden thinks of Henry Kissinger’s quote on the Iran-Iraq War, and laughs.
BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE DID: Pelosi Pulls A Schiff, Deliberately Misquotes Trump-Zelensky Call on House Floor.
DAN MARKEL UPDATE: Florida Bill Would Stop Adelson Family From Preventing Dan Markel’s Parents’ Access To Their Grandchildren. “Markel’s parents, Phil and Ruth Markel, have not seen their grandchildren since 2016 amid allegations that the family of their mother, Wendi Adelson, is being investigated in connection with a murder-for-hire plot.”
STATE SECESSION UPDATE: West Virginia Lawmakers Invite Virginia Counties Fed Up With Gun Control to Secede.
House Concurrent Resolution 8 would allow certain Virginia counties and independent cities to be admitted to West Virginia as constituent counties.
The group of 20 West Virginia Republicans, and one Independent, introducing the resolution said in the proposal that Virginia lawmakers have repudiated “the counsel of that tribune of liberty, Patrick Henry-who stated to the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788 that ‘The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.’”
“[T]he government at Richmond now seeks to place intolerable restraints upon the rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution to the citizens of [Virginia,]” the proposal reads.
My paper on state secession is looking steadily more timely.