Archive for 2020
February 13, 2020
GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING:
Shot: MSNBC on Non-Sanders Democrats: ‘Moderate,’ ‘Moderate,’ ‘Moderate,’ ‘Moderate.’
—Scott Whitlock, NewsBusters.
Chaser: In Dem primary field, the idea of a moderate is a myth.
—Liz Harrington, Fox News.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, CULTURE OF HATE EDITION: Professor wishes death on Rush Limbaugh, attacks Republicans on social media.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Black Student: ‘Segregation Now!’
If you can’t watch the clip, the woman [at the University of Virginia Multicultural Student Center] says this is a “public service announcement,” then:
“If y’all didn’t know, this is the MSC, and, frankly, there’s just too many white people in here, and this is a space for people of color, so, just be really cognizant of the space that you’re taking up because it does make some of us POCs uncomfortable when we see too many white people in here.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I think universities routinely send the exact message this black woman had the bad manners to speak aloud.
As we all know, if a white student stood and ordered non-white students to vacate a space because their non-whiteness made it uncomfortable for white people, the entire campus would have had a gran mal seizure (and if it were Yale, the students and allied faculty would have shaken down the university for $50 million, as happened in 2015 over the Halloween costume debacle). But this will pass without notice, because racism is a virtue when it is expressed or deployed against white people. Dr. Martin Luther King’s universalist ethic is sooo twentieth century.
But sadly, the 21st century America that Michael Graham warned about in Redneck Nation continues to proceed apace.
IT’S OVER: Prominent Elizabeth Warren supporter says ‘she’s done’ after her poor New Hampshire results.
Warren supporters’ outlooks ranged from disappointed to defeatist in the wake of her distant 4th place finish in New Hampshire, with the surrogate arguing that the tail end of Warren’s New Hampshire operation was bungled and less organized than it had been for most of the cycle.
“She couldn’t find/doesn’t have a lane — die hard progressives went with Bernie when they saw his health scare wasn’t lasting,” the surrogate, who asked for anonymity because they weren’t authorized by the campaign to speak publicly, said in a text message. “She couldn’t be the woman/centrist candidate with Klobuchar already there.”
Mixed signals were sent about visibility for the campaign, they said, with the surrogate and others feeling held at arms-length at times and hastily courted at others.
It’s time to quit, but the DNC needs her to keep siphoning votes away from Bernie Sanders.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Granny Winebox Is Going to Hand This Election to Trump.
There was a time when I used to have nothing but praise for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s political instincts and acumen, despite the fact that she represented the other side. In her first incarnation as Speaker of the House, Pelosi was extraordinarily shrewd and powerful. She managed to get members of her own caucus to give up their careers for Obamacare.
Her second turn in the job is making me seriously consider that some sort of intergalactic space invader body-snatching may have happened here.
“Pod people” makes more sense than anything else I can think of.
FIX THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT AND PUNISH THE CROOKS WHO ABUSED IT: My latest Creators Syndicate column. I cover the FISC’s purpose, the saga of its abuse by Obama Administration operatives (with Carter Page’s false incrimination as the premier example), and some possible repairs to the warrant application process.
Here’s the bet:
I wager [federal prosecutor John] Durham will expose crony government at its worst — dirty government officials, bureaucrats and agents who are politically exploiting and criminally manipulating the U.S. national security structure to harm their political opponents.
We shall see.
BLACK HAWKS IN ROTTERDAM: 1st Infantry Division Black Hawk helicopters prepare to redeploy after a nine-month deployment in Europe.
NO ENEMIES ON THE LEFT: Where was the media on this act of political violence? It doesn’t count when it’s committed by leftists.
The suspect allegedly said that he was motivated to ram the tent because of his distaste for Trump and because ’it’s like someone shitting on your grave’, whatever that means. He also took several videos of the incident, but told police that he did not capture the ‘good part’ where he drove at the volunteers.
Thankfully no one was hurt or killed, but this is just the latest example of a deranged Trump-loather targeting political opponents with violence. The most infamous example, of course, was the GOP baseball shooting carried out by a former Sen. Bernie Sanders volunteer in Alexandria, Va., which nearly killed then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. A GOP office in North Carolina was firebombed. Virginia GOP Rep. Tom Garrett required a police presence at a town hall event because of credible threats to his family and dog. Independent journalist Andy Ngo was beaten over the head while covering an Antifa rally in Portland. A Trump supporter got attacked with a crowbar in New Jersey because he wore a shirt featuring the president. The list goes on.
Yet none of these events leads to suggestions by establishment media outlets that the Democratic party or cable news anchors and pundits might . [sic — Ed] Instead, much ado has been made about Trump referring to the media as ‘fake news’ or the ‘enemy of the people,’ statements the media claims make them less safe.
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and this bias by omission makes perfect sense.
Related: At the Bulwark, they’re conserving conservatism by strangely conserving their emotional response to this story: The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes scolds conservatives over the anti-Trump Florida van driver story.
(Classical reference in headline.)
BYE, BYE BIDEN: Inside Mike Bloomberg’s big play for black voters.
CHANGE: Huge: More ‘better off’ under Trump than Clinton, Bush, and Obama.
Another day, another positive Gallup headline for President Trump.
Today’s delivered more economic good news for Trump, that people feel “better off” than they did when the past four presidents were up for reelection.
A record 61% said they are better off than they were three years ago when Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in a shocking election.
“Six in 10 U.S. adults say they are better off than they were three years ago, more than reported this in prior presidential reelection years,” said Gallup.
What’s more, people give Trump much more credit for the improved economy than former President Barack Obama, whose supporters have been claiming credit. Some 26% give Obama a “great deal” of credit compared to Trump at 37%.
No wonder so many people hate him. The man is a monster.
SUSTAINABILITY: U.S. Budget Deficit Grew 25% in First Four Months of Fiscal 2020 on Calendar Quirk.
The U.S. budget gap totaled $389 billion from October through January, compared with $310 billion in the same period a year earlier, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday. Federal outlays rose 10%, to $1.6 trillion, and federal tax receipts grew 6%, to $1.2 trillion—both record highs for the four-month period.
Spending rose sharply because Feb. 1, the date on which certain benefits are paid, fell on a Saturday, shifting those payments into January. If not for that shift, the deficit would have been only 6% larger, and receipts and outlays each would have risen 7%.
…
As a share of gross domestic product, year-over-year deficits were 4.9%, compared with 4.3% in the previous 12 months. That was the highest deficit/GDP ratio since May 2013, when the unemployment rate was 7.5% and real GDP grew just 0.12% from the previous quarter.
Meanwhile: Without a budget, how will Democrats communicate their fiscal priorities?
FLASHBACK: Klobuchar: Mandatory gun buybacks is not gun confiscation. Just for fun, some pro-life politician should propose “fetus buybacks,” where you don’t get an abortion, but the government pays you $50 when the baby is born so it’s all voluntary and okay.
SPEAKING OF POLICE STATES: Sacramento County Says It’s Illegal to Work on Your Own Car in Your Own Garage. To get something like this, the rulers have to be insufficiently afraid of the ruled.
POTEMKIN MEDICINE: What China’s empty new coronavirus hospitals say about its secretive system.
The gulf between the vision of vast new hospitals created and thrown into action within days and the more complicated reality on the ground is a reminder of one of the main challenges for Beijing as it struggles to contain the coronavirus: its own secretive, authoritarian system of government and its vast censorship and propaganda apparatus.
Communist party apparatus well honed to crush dissent also muffles legitimate warnings. A propaganda system designed to support the party and state cannot be relied on for accurate information. That is a problem not just for families left bereft by the coronavirus and businesses destroyed by the sudden shutdown, but for a world trying to assess Beijing’s success in controlling and containing the disease.
“China’s centralised system and lack of freedom of press definitely delay a necessary aggressive early response when it was still possible to contain epidemics at the local level,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
For many Western businesses, theft of trade secrets and other intellectual property just seemed like a cost of gaining access to a billion or so Chinese consumers. But this is something else entirely.
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: Coronavirus cases spike significantly as Chinese officials adopt new counting standards; US cases now at 14.
Prevent spread of coronavirus with ‘less hugging and kissing’, says virologist.
Here’s How Computer Models Simulate the Future Spread of New Coronavirus.
Nissan’s profits plunge 83% and the coronavirus threatens its turnaround plans.
Good News: More than 4,700 infected people have recovered from the coronavirus.
Coronavirus: medical chief says UK hopes to delay any outbreak until summer.
A second case of the coronavirus has been confirmed among US evacuees at California air base. “The first and second patients arrived on different planes and were housed in separate facilities; there are no epidemiologic links between them. . . . At this time there is no indication of person-to-person spread of this virus at the quarantine facility.”
China sees 254 coronavirus deaths in one day.
Singapore’s biggest daily jump in new coronavirus cases takes tally to 58.
Japan woman with coronavirus dies as cruise ship cases soar.