I HAD BEEN ASSURED THIS WAS JUST A CONSPIRACY THEORY: Deputies investigating ‘suspicious fires’ in Linn County. “Deputies and fire crews responded to eight small fires within a two-hour period.”
Previously: Oregon man, freed after using Molotov cocktail to start fire, set six more.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Poll finds surge in loneliness among older adults during pandemic.
THIS IS CNN: CNN Erases ‘Bay Of Pigs’ Award To Accuse Trump Of Making It Up.
To be fair, the concept of a group being anti-Castro is not something that CNN can handle: “As CNN News Chief Executive Eason Jordan told his audience during a 1999 lecture at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism: ‘…Let me also thank Fidel Castro. In the earliest days of CNN, when CNN was meant to be seen only in the United States, the enterprising Fidel Castro was pirating and watching CNN in Cuba. Fidel was intrigued by CNN. He wanted to meet the person responsible. So Ted Turner, who at that point had never traveled to a Communist country or knowingly met a Communist, [went to Havana]. It was big deal for Ted and during the discussions Castro suggested that CNN be made available to the entire world. In fact it was that seed, that idea that grew into CNN International.’”
WHAT TEENAGE REBELLION LOOKS LIKE NOW: Football players suspended from team for carrying Thin Blue, Thin Red lines flags at game. Fight the power! Stick it to the man. Bourgeois is the new transgressive!
PEACEMONGER: How Trump Made It Happen: The Abraham Accords Peace Deal. “Trump correctly figured out that many of the moderate Arab States were tiring of the Palestinians refusal to even try to make peace. They were tired of having to carry the Palestinians and were already dealing with Israel behind the scenes. The ones already working with Israel were the Sunni-led states like UAE and Bahrain (and the Saudis), because of their fear of Shia Iran.”
I had similar thoughts on this last month:
That’s not to say that peace and love and happiness will break out throughout the Middle East, or that the peace will last forever. Trump is a dealmaker, not a miracle worker.
But the theater we just witnessed — which will create genuine benefits for Arabs and Israelis alike — was a very stable genius bit of kabuki theater:
• Launch a peace initiative designed to induce the Palestinian leadership to indulge in their usual bad behavior
• Give Israel the backing it needed to ostensibly take dramatic action in the Jordan River Valley
• Watch as Israel and Arab governments practically fall over themselves to “give up” the land Israel never annexed in exchange for the peace the Arabs need in order to face Iran
Nobody actually gave up anything, and everybody is getting what they wanted.
Well, except for the Palestinians, but yet again, they have only themselves to blame for that.
Maybe Trump just lucked out, somehow bumbling his stupid way into peace.
Maybe the Bolshoi Ballet is just an infinite number of hyperactive spider monkeys in leotards.
Nothing this well-orchestrated happens by happenstance.
The art of the deal, you could say.
HEH:
IF JOE CAN DO IT, ANYONE CAN: Joe Biden Votes In Person, Wrecks the Democrats’ ‘We Need Mail-In Voting’ Narrative.
MY COLLEAGUE PENNY WHITE AND I HAVE A NEW DRAFT PIECE ON SSRN: Due Process in a Fee-Driven State. We argue that when everyone participating in the justice system is aware that the system itself depends on sufficient revenue from fines, fees, and forfeitures, that very dependency is a conflict of interest sufficient to violate due process rights.
Download it early and often! It’s short and fascinating.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Crazy Antifa Goes Full T.J. Hooker on Cop Car.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: When is it smart to jump on a moving police cruiser?
Answer: Never. It is never smart to jump on a moving police cruiser, unless you’re trying out for Stupid Antifa Tricks.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
Pennsylvania proves antifa can be beaten (and we don’t mean with nightsticks.)
Joe Biden pushes fake Russian Collusion narrative.
David Frum defends tween sexploitation to own the cons.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE: Wildfires Will Get Worse Under Decades-Old Liberal Policies, Veteran Forester Says.
UPDATE: According to Climate Feedback, the Daily Signal article “oversimplifies drivers of wildfires and downplays role of climate change.” Read Climate Feedback’s full fact-check here.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: My college is robbing me. Here’s the bill to prove it. “If I’m not on campus, why am I being charged for transportation services, food facility fees, tech fees, safety and security fees, and university fees meant to cover on-campus clubs and activities?”
Because the university wants the money.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Kamala Harris Accidentally Reveals Her Dagger for Biden’s Back. “In a move that no doubt got spit takes from everyone on Team Biden, Kamala Harris let fly with the Mother of all Freudian slips on Monday when she referred to the ‘Harris administration,’ and then — because it’s 2020 and this election — made things even more awkward with her bumbling correction.”
See also: Kinsley Gaffe.
THE TOWN SO NICE THEY HAD TO CLOSE IT TWICE: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to be virtual this year.
BEZOS SHOULD LISTEN TO THE RABBIS: “100 Orthodox Rabbis to Jeff Bezos: Stop Using Southern Poverty Law Center to Classify Hate Groups.” (You’ll find a bit about the SPLC’s history here.)
GOOD. THEY’RE AWFUL PEOPLE WHO DON’T DESERVE TO HAVE ANY POWER. Liberal Media Scream: Chuck Todd frets the media have lost their ‘power.’
MY COLLEAGUE PENNY WHITE AND I HAVE A NEW DRAFT PIECE ON SSRN: Due Process in a Fee-Driven State. We argue that when everyone participating in the justice system is aware that the system itself depends on sufficient revenue from fines, fees, and forfeitures, that very dependency is a conflict of interest sufficient to violate due process rights.
Download it early and often! It’s short and fascinating.
ANDREW LATHAM: China as a Faltering Contender.
The conventional wisdom has long been that, if there is to be a major war involving China and the U.S., it will be the result of either of a rising China initiating war to displace the failing U.S. hegemon, or a declining U.S. initiating a war to stymie a rising China. But this ignores the possibility that systemic or hegemonic war between China and the U.S. may not have anything to do with a rising power. It ignores the possibility that such a war might be initiated by what I will call a faltering contender, a once-rising power whose ascent is running out of steam and whose leaders believe that it must decisively reshape the global order now while it still can.
The logic linking a faltering bid for hegemony to systemic war is simple enough. Faced with the prospect that it is losing the demographic or developmental race with other potential challengers, or merely with non-hegemonic rivals, a faltering contender will sometimes launch what might be thought of as a war of desperation. In this kind of war, a faltering contender will initiate hostilities because, having realized that it has reached the peak of its relative power, it decides it must initiate war now, even under unfavorable circumstances, because if it doesn’t, it will not only fail to achieve predominance but will face the prospect of catastrophic defeat in the near future. Such wars are not caused by states leaping through open windows of opportunity created by the military advantage they enjoy over their potential rivals. Instead, they are caused by stalled rising powers, at a current or imminent military disadvantage, attacking despite this disadvantage because it is the least bad of several very bad options open to them.
An interesting piece and well worth your time.
Exit thought: “As historian David Fromkin put it succinctly in his book Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?: ‘Germany deliberately started a European war to keep from being overtaken by Russia’.”
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