PINK FLOYD’S THE DELICATE SOUND OF THUNDER FINALLY ARRIVES AS A STAND-ALONE DVD/BLU-RAY.
My latest, over at Ed Driscoll.com.
(Bumped.)
Archive for 2020
December 12, 2020
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: “U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) today joined a discharge petition to force the House of Representatives to vote on bipartisan legislation establishing an independent commission to investigate any collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia to interfere in the presidential election.”
—Press release by New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell, May 17th, 2017.
● Chaser: On Friday, Pascrell “asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to refuse to seat members of the next Congress who support President Donald Trump’s effort to challenge the election results. Pascrell accused the 126 Republicans who supported the Texas lawsuit of ‘insurrection or rebellion’ — or at least, of supporting ‘insurrection or rebellion’ — against the Constitution.”
—Tyler O’Neil, PJ Media.com, today.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Ultimate Latke.
ROGER SIMON: The Democrats Are the Party of China.
The Democrats are the party of China, meaning the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people, who seem to be of little interest to them.
That disinterest includes not just millions of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners, well known to have faced various forms of extreme malevolence from concentration camps to forced organ transplants, but just about any citizen of the country who evinces a public inclination for democracy.
The Democrats have been the party of this China for some time, even before the Obama administration when the relationship rose to a new level.
The endless talk of Trump-Russia collusion that began at the end of that administration and went on for three years, that anybody paying attention knew was fallacious from the start, was as an attempt to derail Donald Trump but also served as an ongoing and, at least partly, deliberate distraction from the real issue at the crux of global politics.
That issue is, of course, the Chinese communist’s desire for world domination, far more threatening than the relatively weak, impecunious, and shrinking (in population) Russia.
Intimate Connection
Many of us have known or suspected the intimate Democrat-China connection for a long time. Joe Biden all but spelled it out early in the campaign when he informed us “folks” that China “was not the enemy,” before he had to walk it back for appearance’s sake.
Not that that was of much moment to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who had a Chinese agent as her chauffeur for twenty years and whose husband Richard Blum made a fortune in the People’s Republic. (Former president Jiang Zemin was their Thanksgiving guest.)
Nor would it have disturbed Michael Bloomberg (D-N.Y., sometimes) who made even more of a fortune, a spectacular one, in fact, from his cooperation and kind words about the Chinese totalitarian regime that allowed him to distribute his real-time stock trading “Bloomberg Boards” throughout the most populous country in the world.
But these famous people are likely just the “tip of the iceberg,” in the words Richard Grenell used on “Hannity” Wednesday to describe the latest Democrat-China scandal.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, Democratic congressman from California’s 15th district, was implicated in a Chinese “honey pot”-style spy situation with one Fang Fang, known locally as Christine Fang, an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).
Swalwell’s district, as the congressman brags on his own website, has more PhD’s than any other district in the United States, underscoring what William F. Buckley said years ago about preferring to be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard professorate.
Mr. Swalwell—who never seemed to have met a television camera he didn’t like and is married with two young children—ran for president earlier in 2019 to little avail. He now seems destined for oblivion—we can hope.
But what of the rest of the “iceberg” to which Grenell refers? The FBI, after the presidential election, of course, more of that in a bit, has isolated other Chinese “honey trap” targets among California officials. Apparently the young ladies made the very liberal, tech heavy Bay Area a territory of special interest.
Grenell, who, it will be remembered, was recently acting Director of National Intelligence and therefore had access to a great deal of confidential information, had considerably more to say.
“Eric Swalwell did exactly what the Chinese wanted,” he told Sean Hannity Wednesday. “We need to figure out, are there others? And I can tell you without giving away too much intelligence, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the leverage that China is putting on our politicians. There are many, many more,” adding, “There’s a variety of mayors, governors, senior people.”
The Democrats have long been the Party of China, but it was nice of Hunter and “Mr. Kiss Kiss Fang Fang” to make it official.
GOYA’S EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Dear AOC, Please Call for a Boycott My Blog and DaTipJar.
FIGHT THE POWER, STICK IT TO THE MAN: Princeton professor defends his use of the word ‘terrorist’ to describe Black Justice League. “I refuse to allow myself to be silenced for nonexistent crimes.”
HEY ELLENIOT, AREN’T YOU A BIT TOO OLD FOR THIS?
Americans found themselves divided into two camps this week — the mildly skeptical and the fervently disinterested — when the actress formally known as Ellen Page announced she was a boy called Elliot and, in fact, always has been a boy.
In the proclamation, posted to Instagram, Page not only came out as transgender — meaning she was born one sex but identifies as the other — but also as non-binary — which means she actually has no sex. Yes, it makes no sense. But try not to think too much about, she clearly hasn’t either.
You’re forgiven if you might be hesitant to rewrite the science textbooks for a 33-year-old actress so gullible she wept on national television over the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax. (A word of advice going forward to the newest member of my gender: there’s nothing manly about crying on TV). For many, Page seems to embody a sort of boutique transgenderism we’re all now accustomed to seeing, a prêt-à-porter queer identity that is so mired with inconsistency and highfalutin gender theory as to be rendered utterly meaningless.
Still, following Page’s big reveal, yucksters on social media squawked with the usual tongue-in-cheek observations: as a white male does this mean Page now has privilege? Did Page steal dozens of parts from female actors? Is her wife now heterosexual? Does her Best Actress nomination now render the Academy transphobic? And that breakout role as a pregnant teenager in the film Juno just got very avant-garde.
This is no longer an effective strategy against the agents of liberalism. Transgender ideology has become so muddled the left threw in the towel on the Sisyphean effort to explain and defend all its inherent contradictions. Cheer, hit the ‘like’ button, don’t think too much about it, the marching orders go.
And leave it to Big Tech to immediately correct the historical record in Elleniot’s service. There was never someone named Ellen and Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Google inserted the name ‘Elliot’ into all search results and Wikipedia was wiped clean. Even the official account of Instagram commented on Page’s announcement, writing, ‘hello Eliot and thank you for using your voice and sharing your story.’
Sure enough, “Eliot’s” IMDB page now lists “him” as “actor” and for the first time that I’ve seen on IMDB, refers to an “actor” as “they” in “his,” err, “their?” bio. The 21st century is not only stranger than we can imagine, it is stranger than even George Orwell could have imagined.
RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Stanford University caves to backlash after enforcing Trump’s Critical Race Theory ban.
WELL, THAT’S ONE WAY TO GET YOUR OWN MSNBC SHOW: ‘Happy Anniversary’ Al Sharpton: 25 Years Since He Incited Freddy’s Massacre.
Flashback: “Sharpton paid to keep quiet about lack of black TV programming: suit.”
ZOMBIE INITIATIVE: An initiative repealing Washington State’s prohibition on preferential treatment based on race or sex was defeated in 2019. But they’re already gearing up to launch another one.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “*Flicks cigarette after a long drag* ‘Here’s the thing. If Santa knows when kids are naughty or nice then he knew Rudolph was being bullied.'”
NOBODY HAS HANDLED THE CHINESE CORONAVIRUS WORSE: How Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order Trapped My 89-Year-Old Mother in COVID Limbo for Weeks.
JOHN LENNON: THE FIRST AND LAST GLOBAL ICON.
Lennon was killed on the cusp of that change, as symbolic as only a crowd symbol can be. His killer, the thwarted fan Mark Chapman, disapproved of the comments that had contributed to the end of The Beatles’ touring career, Lennon’s musings of March 1966: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary.”
The hysteria that followed the publication of Lennon’s claim supplies the central panel of the historical triptych. From the fascism of the European Thirties (stadium rallies, radio broadcasts, students burning books), to the mass entertainment of the American Sixties (stadium concerts, television broadcasts, young Christians burning Beatles albums), to the rise of globalized Islam in the Eighties (more stadium rallies, satellite television, young Islamists burning The Satanic Verses).
Lennon did not cross the historical frontier of 1980 along with the other three Beatles and his most ardent admirers, the Boomers. This prevented him from vitiating his appeal by ageing or making rubbish records in the decades of Rock music’s apparently interminable senescence. It could not prevent him turning into the horror that he had already become and could never escape: a modern celebrity.
* * * * * * * *
“The dream is over,” Lennon sang on “God” in 1970. “I don’t believe in Beatles.” But the copyrights live forever. Lennon escaped from one brand, the moptopped cartoon that were the early Beatles, but now he is more tightly imprisoned in Yoko’s franchise than he ever was in one of Brian Epstein’s suits.
This, to the evident and unending chagrin of Paul McCartney, is what Lennon now means, at least to those born after in the era when music was the dominant modern art form. He is the icon of a consumer substitute for religion and morality in the post-Christian West. This is everything he had attained by the time of that fateful interview in March 1966, and everything he tried to escape by breaking himself down in the following decade. Imagine if Lennon had lived, and seen how Yoko, his saviour and true love, his “Mother”, had turned his tormented life and great tunes into a parodic cash cow. It’s easy if you try.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I think Lennon might have fit in better in the 1980s than the above suggests: Working class hero? John Lennon ‘was closet conservative and fan of Reagan.’ “But by the time he died, John Lennon was a closet conservative embarrassed by his radical past, according to his former personal assistant. Fred Seaman claims that the former Beatle was a fan of Ronald Reagan, who went on to become America’s Republican president in 1981 and forged a close political alliance with Margaret Thatcher. ‘John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on [Democrat] Jimmy Carter,’ he says in a documentary film.”
A COUPLE OF COMMENTS FROM FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK ABOUT LAST NIGHT’S SUPREME COURT OPINION:
“We lost. Treating that as the end of the world and saying everything is hopeless is exactly what the other side wants us to do.”
“I don’t trust the Dems. Nor do I trust the Republicans. But I do trust people like Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas. SCOTUS has ruled. I think they are erring on the side of leaving states alone, which from a certain standpoint is the right call. But man, people, there is so much work to do in the next four years. To ensure the *next* fraud is not nearly so easy for the DNC. They exploited a unique situation: the Covid Panic. Circumstances will not always align for this. And, they’ve cheated before. It’s how Kennedy won in 1960. It does not mean we’re destined forever to be disenfranchised. It just means the Prole Rebellion has to go GROUND GAME in precincts and in the state legislatures. Nothing is permanent. Biden-Harris can be survived. Gotta make sure the Prole Rebellion doesn’t exit with Trump. It should never have been about one man anyway. It should be all about the idea: of the Little Man wresting back control of his government from would-be oligarchs and technocrats.”
“Consider. Tammany Hall once ruled New York City. It was utterly corrupt, and utterly controlled that city for a long time. Until . . . it shriveled and bled and died of its own necrotic rot. Something the Tammany crew would have thought unthinkable in their prime. To echo what I have already said: corrupt systems often seem at the height of their power, right before they collapse. Did anyone guess in 1988 that the Soviets would collapse and be done for within 24 months? Did LBJ or Kennedy believe Nixon would come back to win big? The ballot box took a hit. It’s smoking. It is not destroyed. Now the Dems get to spend four years with Biden-Harris doing a clown show in the White House.”
“Stop. Even if all you do is make them cheat harder, you will vote. Don’t let the lying, cheating, stealing bastards get you down. Time to fight. Or fight harder. And prepare. Because sh*t will get real soon enough. Make sure you are ready.”
UPDATE: Another friend sends this: “A discussion of all lawful means to oppose the near certain incoming Biden administration and to organize to prevent the same fraud occurring in future elections, including in Georgia in a few weeks, would be good. People on the right are so irate that some small number are virtually certain to do spasmodic and foolish things, that would provoke a very destructive crack down. In fact, I have to believe this is what the Ds snd the nomenklatura want. Giving people a lawful and potentially affective outlet for their legitimate anger would be helpful. I really don’t know what the answer to this is at all, myself, and I’d like to start hearing ideas.”
TECH HAS CHOSEN SIDES: YouTube Blocks Trump Campaign Video.
JUST THINK OF THE MEDIA AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE: You Have to See This NBC Hunter Biden Sub-headline to Believe It. It’s Real and It’s Really That Awful.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Big Tech, Big Media Conspired To Hide Biden Corruption From Voters.