Archive for 2020
February 26, 2020
ADVICE THAT WILL BE IGNORED: Don’t Do Russia’s Work. “What I do want to do here is to reinforce a point from the 2017 article: Russia’s main effort is to divide Americans against each other, not to support any particular outcome in any particular election. Irresponsible speculation that someone is being backed by Russia — let alone an actual agent of Russia’s — is doing the work of the Russians for them. Insofar as this kind of rhetoric is deployed without hard evidence, it is irresponsible. When American speakers with prominent platforms engage in this kind of irresponsible rhetoric, they can reach far more people and do far more damage than the Russian government’s propaganda arm could ever purchase with its limited resources.”
But they can’t help themselves, because they’re crazy. Plus: “If we look at who is actually doing Russia’s work — dividing Americans against one another with these suggestions of foreign influence — it turns out that these journalists are much better candidates for ‘Russian agents’ than any of the politicians (excepting Ms. Clinton, who is right there with the journalists advancing irresponsible rhetoric). I do not say this to accuse them, or anyone, of being a Russian agent. What I mean to say is that Putin has more reason to be happy because major TV networks are accusing the winner of the Nevada caucus of being a spy than he has reason to feel good about Bernie Sanders having won.”
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Across the country, rural communities want to secede from their states. Here’s why.
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: Coronavirus spreads faster outside China as fears of U.S. impact hit markets.
Coronavirus cases surge to 400 in Italy.
Eerie photos show empty streets in Italy amid coronavirus fears.
New Coronavirus Cases Outside China Overtake Inside for First Time.
Coronavirus Live Updates: Cases Rise in Italy and Iran, and Spread to Other Countries.
At Spanish Hotel Under Coronavirus Lockdown, Meals With Masks. “I can’t wait to leave.”
U.S. colleges suspend foreign campus activity for students abroad.
Congress questions HHS chief Alex Azar on COVID-19 ‘confusion.’
Orange County declares emergency over coronavirus, a day after San Francisco issues decree.
Maria Bartiromo: Coronavirus causing stocks to fall due to US companies’ dependence on China.
Microsoft says it will miss revenue forecast for Windows business segment due to coronavirus.
DANA LOESCH: How CNN Set Me Up For The Near-Riot Parkland Town Hall.
KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Bernie Sanders Hates America — But he still has a soft spot for Fidel Castro.
Senator Sanders is not an intellectual. He is not a scholar of law or economics or intersectionality studies, and he is not a member of the new administrative class that the American Left has been building since Woodrow Wilson. He is only their John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness and announcing the coming of the new kingdom.
What kind of kingdom is it to be?
There is some indication in history, because Senator Sanders’s parroting Castroite propaganda about Communist Cuba’s supposed successes in literacy and health care are hardly without precedent. The New York Times’s infamous Walter Duranty reportage was straight-up Soviet propaganda. Lincoln Steffens’s celebration of Soviet life — “I have seen the future, and it works!” — required a measure of willful blindness. The New Republic at times functioned as a gentle apologist for Stalin and Stalinism. Noam Chomsky and Pol Pot, the American Left and Ho Chi Minh, the American Left and Chairman Mao, the American Left and Castro, the American Left and Hugo Chávez, the European Left and the Ayatollah Khomeini, knucklehead campus dopes and Che Guevara, etc. — the pattern repeats itself. There is a streak of Leninism that runs from the Soviet enterprise through Mao’s China and into the ayatollahs’ Iran. But what Lenin’s revolution really has in common with Mao’s and with Khomeini’s is that each of those ultimately was directed at the same enemy: us.
Castro was fortunate in one sense: “A decade ago, Forbes estimated Fidel Castro’s personal net worth at $900 million,” a Forbes columnist wrote after Castro’s death in 2016. Just under the wire to avoid the wrath that the millionaire Vermont Marxist has for billionaires.
LEFTISM RUNS ON HATE, AND LYNCH MOBS WERE ALWAYS A DEMOCRATIC TROPE: Watch a liberal lynch mob form and riot, in real time.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ACCELERATES: Israel, Socialism, and Bernie “Corbyn” Sanders.
WELL, IT’S NO ORION, BUT IT’S KIND OF COOL: Engineers Propose a New ‘Detonating’ Rocket Engine, And It’s as Wild as It Sounds.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Across the country, rural communities want to secede from their states. Here’s why.
LESLIE EASTMAN: Wuhan Virus Watch: Rod Rosenstein’s Sister Gins Up Fear With Her CDC Statement. “HHS Secretary Alex Azar gave a much calmer, more reasoned, and likely more factual risk assessment.”
I’m not so sure this stuff hurts Trump:
PELOSI REACHES ACCEPTANCE STAGE OF GRIEF: Pelosi says she’d be comfortable with Sanders at top of ticket.
Flashback: Impeaching Trump Probably Destroyed Biden’s Presidential Campaign.
TWENTY-NINE YEARS AGO TODAY: The Battle of 73 Easting. “It was the largest tank battle between American- and Soviet-constructed armor since Israeli M-60 Patton tanks faced off against Egyptian T-62s in Sinai campaign of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. All throughout the 70s and early 1980s, various media outlets talked about how much better Soviet military equipment was than American equipment. (I remember a 60 Minutes episode that talked about Soviet equipment being better ‘all across the board.’) And Soviet equipment was better—on paper, with thicker armor, higher top speeds, etc. And then 73 Easting happened, and M1A1s wiped the floor with T-72s.”
Buy American.
ABC SUSPENDS SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AFTER PROJECT VERITAS VIDEO SURFACES: The guerrilla journalists captured now suspended political correspondent David Wright criticizing the network for failure to properly deliver the truth to viewers.
AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT HAD A DRUM MAGAZINE AND I WAS BRIEFLY EXCITED: First Look: Stoeger P3000 Freedom Series Supreme.
MOVE ALONG. THERE’S NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Last week’s report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hasn’t gotten much attention (and I suspect that suits the Commission’s majority just fine). It was supposed to highlight Obama-Era (and Bush-Era!) Department of Education’s warnings to colleges and universities that they must exercise control over students who make “sexual comments, jokes or gestures,” “spread rumors” (even true ones), or apparently write just about anything deemed to be offensive “of a sexual nature.” The idea when the report was originally planned (in 2013) was to show how colleges and universities are pressured to limit speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Alas, due to changes in the membership of the Commission over the course of Obama’s Presidency, the long-delayed report turned into more a defense of those policies than a critique. The report has a tone of “Move along … nothing to see here” to it. Here’s my short dissent.
The good news is that the Trump Administration will soon be making two new appointments to the Commission. I am looking forward to welcoming two new colleagues.
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA IS NOT OK: A second University of Oklahoma professor has used the n-word. Kathleen Brosnan, a history professor, was reading “a historical document” that repeatedly uses the forbidden word. Campus goes crazy. In response the university is making “diversity and inclusion training” mandatory for all faculty, staff, and administrators. Someone should FOIA the cost of this.
HEH: Ilhan Omar’s Challenger Elegantly Responds to Six Ways the Congresswoman Identifies Herself. “Rep. Ilhan Omar is confused. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say, more confused than usual. The Somali-born, thrice married (once to her brother), home-wrecking, socialist had a hard time Sunday night figuring out how to ‘identify’ herself.”
YET ANOTHER MASSIVE TIME-SUCK: Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain. “For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge. Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, the new digital depot encourages the public to not just view its contents, but use, reuse and transform them into just about anything they choose—be it a postcard, a beer koozie or a pair of bootie shorts.”
Nice.