Archive for 2020
July 17, 2020
IT’S ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Finally, some good news.
It’s not often these days that there’s good news on two fronts. The nonradical elements in the media are getting restless. And thanks to a band of free market economists, the chances of enacting a cut in the payroll tax that could quickly boost the economy have improved significantly.
Read the whole thing.
BRYAN PRESTON: Burger King’s Cow Farts Ad Highlights Something the Left Hates — Private Sector Innovation Over Government Intervention. “You know, cow farts have been my number one environmental concern. Well, make that number two.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 Great Less-Lethal Self-Defense Products.
ILLINOIS: Read the court documents from ComEd criminal charges that implicate Mike Madigan.
Related: Madigan’s office served with grand jury subpoena. “Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is implicated in a federal bribery case against Commonwealth Edison, alleging the utility won Madigan’s favor to back legislation by directing $1.3 million in contracts and payments to his associates and letting him name people for jobs, from meter reader on up. Madigan’s office July 17 received a grand jury subpoena for documents related to the ongoing federal investigation, according to WGN. According to Mark Maxwell of WCIA-TV, Capitol Police at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield saw men in suits enter the building Friday morning. One flashed an FBI badge.”
WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday: Shaq to the Rescue and the Sneaky Skinny Dipper.
WE ALL NEED TO ADMIT THAT AMERICA HAS A TATTOO PROBLEM: National Tattoo Day Trends on Twitter.
(Classical reference in headline.)
TACKED ON TO A SMALLER ECONOMY, TOO: The Chinese property bubble is now bigger than the U.S. housing bubble that led to the Great Recession.
ANDREW SULLIVAN: See You Next Friday: A Farewell Letter.
Two years ago, I wrote that we all live on campus now. That is an understatement. In academia, a tiny fraction of professors and administrators have not yet bent the knee to the woke program — and those few left are being purged. The latest study of Harvard University faculty, for example, finds that only 1.46 percent call themselves conservative. But that’s probably higher than the proportion of journalists who call themselves conservative at the New York Times or CNN or New York Magazine. And maybe it’s worth pointing out that “conservative” in my case means that I have passionately opposed Donald J. Trump and pioneered marriage equality, that I support legalized drugs, criminal-justice reform, more redistribution of wealth, aggressive action against climate change, police reform, a realist foreign policy, and laws to protect transgender people from discrimination. I was one of the first journalists in established media to come out. I was a major and early supporter of Barack Obama. I intend to vote for Biden in November.
It seems to me that if this conservatism is so foul that many of my peers are embarrassed to be working at the same magazine, then I have no idea what version of conservatism could ever be tolerated. And that’s fine. We have freedom of association in this country, and if the mainstream media want to cut ties with even moderate anti-Trump conservatives, because they won’t bend the knee to critical theory’s version of reality, that’s their prerogative. It may even win them more readers, at least temporarily. But this is less of a systemic problem than in the past, because the web has massively eroded the power of gatekeepers to suppress and control speech. I was among the first to recognize this potential for individual freedom of speech, and helped pioneer individual online media, specifically blogging, 20 years ago.
And this is where I’m now headed.
Apparently even faux-conservatives like Andrew (who endorsed John Kerry in 2004 as “the right man – and the conservative choice – for a difficult and perilous time,” in addition to the aforementioned Obama and Biden) are no longer welcome in the monolithic DNC-MSM. Sullivan goes on to write that “the Weekly Dish, which launches now, is where I’ve landed. The Weekly Dish will be hosted by Substack, a fantastic company that hosts an increasingly impressive number of individual free thinkers, like Jesse Singal and Matt Taibbi. There is a growing federation of independent thinkers and writers not subject to mainstream media’s increasingly narrow range of acceptable thought.” Sullivan also notes that he’s “long tried to figure out a way to have this kind of lively community without endangering my health and sanity.”
Sincere good luck on both efforts. As Jim Treacher tweeted last month:
Sullivan’s 2008 stint at the Atlantic caused serious damage to that magazine’s reputation, cemented by the hiring and then immediate shameful firing of Kevin Williamson by editor Jeffrey Goldberg in 2018. The cause of which was a sneak preview of the New York Times’ meltdown last month caused by its crybully young staffers, culminating in the ouster of Bari Weiss. The purges of the MSM have been a clarifying moment for all to see, as ideological purity and “safetyism” have driven out the last vestiges of political diversity.
THE MORE WE LOOK, THE MORE EVIDENCE OF PAST CATASTROPHES WE FIND: North Sea sediment analysis helps scientists reconstruct ancient tsunami.
DENVER: No plans currently to address growing tent city near Capitol.
The area in question causing heartburn for Colorado Republican lawmakers is Lincoln Park, a piece of land that is owned by the state and bordered by Broadway and Lincoln streets on the east and west and 14th and Colfax avenues on the north and south. It lies just west of the state capitol building and just east of Civic Center Park.
There are no public bathrooms, the sprinkler system has been shut off because campers have broken sprinkler heads, rats can be seen in the park. Campers are defecating in public, and they are obstructing sidewalks.
“This is just another consequence of a lack of leadership in the metro area,” said Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, the Republican senator who represents multiple counties across eastern Colorado. “Officials don’t support the police, so law and order take a back seat.”
According to Colorado State Trooper Josh Lewis, his office is aware of the issues, and despite being the law enforcement division that oversees the one square block park, there is nothing troopers can do.
Denver is such a lovely city, it’s a damn shame what its voters and leadership are doing to it.
CRY ME A RIVER: Man Who Vandalized Lincoln Memorial Could Get 10 Years in Jail.
As Stephen Miller tweets, “The excuse with camps and Nazi Germany was the world simply didn’t know. It was largely hidden & there was very little media. This is happening right out in the open. The world knows. So what’s the excuse this time?”
Hey, those Colin Kaepernick sneakers and NBA merchandise don’t stitch themselves, you know.
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Furloughs turn into job losses as Vox Media lays off 72 staffers.
