OUT ON A LIMB: NYC mayoral candidate Eric Adams says ‘young white affluent people’ lead the ‘defund the police’ movement. “I have never been to an event where the people were saying we want less cops. Never.”
Archive for 2021
April 28, 2021
CAROLINE GLICK: The Thomas-Greenfield Doctrine of U.S. Foreign Policy. “The only way to understand Biden foreign policy doctrine is by recognizing that it isn’t a foreign policy doctrine at all. It is an extension of Biden’s domestic genuflection to the radicals who control his own party. This genuflection takes the Biden administration’s embrace of critical race theory in domestic law enforcement, public health, immigration and economic policies and projects it out onto the world stage. The purpose is not to advance America’s interests in the world. Rather, the purpose is to signal to the fanatical progressives who run the modern Democratic Party that Biden is their man in the White House.”
Well, he is.
BUT IT’S A PROFITABLE GRIFT. Never-Trump Grift Is Back: Republican Accountability Project Is Even More Tone Deaf, Ridiculous, and Irrelevant. “One can assume the goal is to affect the reelection of those they disagree with in the coming cycle. To demonstrate how out of touch Never Trump is with the Republican Party, only 14 congressional GOP members received an ‘A’ grade, and 136 received an ‘F’ from the group. To give you a flavor of who their pet Republicans are, one is Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) in the House. In the Senate, they are fans of Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Of course, Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) also gets top marks.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Howard’s end: Shock jock Stern has lost his sting — and his mojo.
“The Howard Stern Show,” long in decline, is dead.
In March 2020, when New York City officially went into lockdown, Stern fled to his basement in the Hamptons. Over one year later and now vaccinated, as he first admitted on-air Monday — back from yet another vacation — Stern still has no intention of ever returning to his Midtown studio, his luxury Upper West Side apartment, or any semblance of pre-pandemic life.
The Howard Stern who stayed on air as planes flew into the World Trade Center is unrecognizable.
“Things will never get back to normal,” he declared just two weeks ago. “I do not believe the pandemic will ever be over.”
For a once-constant listener like me, this is heretical, especially here in New York City, where every single neighborhood is struggling to survive. Also, Howard: This pandemic will end, even though you, a germophobic recluse, clearly wish it would not.
But such sentiments have defined Stern’s show and attitude this past year: pessimism, anger, and a worldview that shrinks ever inward, limited in size and scope to The Basement — the literal and metaphorical dwelling place of this once-great show. . . .
Stern long ago abandoned his best attribute, going after famous hypocrites. Hilaria Baldwin, for example, pretending for years to be from Spain — when really she’s from Boston — and bagging a movie star would once have been Stern show fodder for days.
But Hilaria barely rates a mention. Why? Can’t piss off Howard’s good pal Alec in the Hamptons. Howard’s in with the cool kids — all he ever really wanted, despite claims to the contrary.
Almost every institution in America, even the Howard Stern Show, has been undermined by its owners’ desire for chumminess with the elites. Who aren’t even elite.
JOHN MCWHORTER: Do Black People Enjoy Being Told They Are Weak and Dumb? The Elect Hope so.
This KenDiAngelonianism, in its infantilization of black people for purposes of white self-congratulation, is racist, as I have discussed in this space recently. Perhaps the only way to discourage its takeover of our educational institutions will be for black people to start protesting against it on those terms, because abjuring being racist is what The Elect consider a paramount, dealbreaker reason for living. But there is a crucial obstacle to this.
Namely, many black people – and especially more educated ones, overrepresented in education, academia, and the media — accept being treated the way Tom Taylors prefer to treat us.
Why do so many of us accept this condescension as a compliment, almost enjoying being told we are too dumb to be truly educated, to be specific, or to be subject to genuine competition? Psychology has an answer to this question: a personal trait called the tendency for interpersonal victimhood, or an embrace of victimhood status.
Read the whole thing.
ISN’T THIS REALLY JUST A STEALTHY WAY TO UNDERCUT ASIANS? Virginia schools to do away with advanced math courses for grades K-10.
IT’S CALLED “THE MARCHING TWITS.” UT-Austin creates alternative marching band for those who refuse to play ‘Eyes of Texas.’
Well, it should be.
FIGHT THE POWER, STICK IT TO THE MAN: Federal court of appeals sides with Christian student group in a case against the University of Iowa.
PRIVACY: With 4 Words, Apple Just Exposed the Biggest Problem With Facebook.
On Monday, Apple finally released iOS 14.5, and, I checked, Facebook still opens on my iPhone. The world didn’t come to an end for digital advertisers, small businesses, or anyone else. In fact, no one really knows how much of a difference the change will make to anyone.
I suppose we’ll find out soon. AppsFlyer, an ad attribution measurement firm, says that the average opt-in rate in its testing is around 26 percent. That means that almost three-quarters of users are likely to opt out of allowing Facebook and other apps to track their activity.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, told The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern that the company’s goal is to “give users a choice.” Those four words are at the core of the problem with the position Facebook has taken since Apple announced the changes last year at its developer conference.
Apple’s motivation might not be anything “nobler” than sticking it to a rival or increasing the value of its own ad platform, but the benefits to any consumers concerned about privacy are clear.
VICTORIA TAFT: Here Are Down and Dirty Reasons Why California Lost a Congressional Seat and Texas and Florida Added in Census. “For the first time in 170 years, California has lost congressional representation because of a diminishing population.”
AMERICA’S WRECKING BALL: Biden’s 100-Day Rampage: Forty executive orders and counting…
Not since 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first 100 days as president set a benchmark for presidential performance, has any president done so much so quickly as Joe Biden. In fact, Biden is surpassing Roosevelt significantly in imposing massive damaging changes on America that may not be reversible.
Unlike Roosevelt, Biden isn’t only relying on Congress to pass legislation. Biden is achieving his goals by making international agreements, imposing executive orders and policy decisions, and working hard to undo everything his predecessor did.
Biden will brag about his accomplishments later this week in a speech to a joint session of Congress. We can expect to hear about his rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and his promise last week to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030. We’ll hear about his “successes” in dealing with Russia and China, about fighting America’s “systemic racism,” and “his” successes in fighting COVID. He’ll brag about bringing our troops home from Afghanistan.
If we analyze what these “successes” mean to us, our national security, and our economy, it’s quite clear that Biden defines success in terms of his ability to diminish our economy and national security.
The Chinese are happy.
CAN ATHEISM AND FREE WILL CO-EXIST: Free will and individual responsibility are at the heart of freedom, but best-selling atheists like Sam Harris claim free will is an illusion. And Jerry Coyne argues that people are nothing more than “meat robots.” Kyle Butt argues that you choosing to read this post and watch the linked video demonstrates why Harris and Coyne are wrong.
THIS IS CNN: CNN’s New “Reporter,” Natasha Bertrand, is a Deranged Conspiracy Theorist and Scandal-Plagued CIA Propagandist.
I think what Glenn Greenwald means is that she’ll fight right in there. Plus a look back at how the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg made his bones as a fellow deep state propagandist, and an update:
Just as several readers predicted would happen, other corporate journalists responded to this article by engaging in a rank-closing defense of Bertrand, principally by accusing me of misogyny for publishing this critique of her reporting. Unlike me, they evidently view adult professional woman in highly influential media roles (such as Bertrand) as too fragile to endure critiques of their journalism, unlike adult men, who they apparently believe are strong enough to handle criticisms: a regressive view of the sexes right out of the 1950s. They also apparently skipped over the entire first section of this article detailing how Jeffrey Goldberg and Ken Dilanian — both men — were the pioneers of the CIA-serving career trajectory Bertrand is now following. But the oddest aspect of this media reaction, the only one that makes it worth noting here, is that misogyny allegations against me for this article were led by GQ’s own Russiagate fanatic Julia Ioffe, even though Ioffe herself, in 2019, publicly accused Bertrand of a rather serious ethical violation that probably should be added to the list:
Needless to say, read the whole thing.
NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR: The Moon is going to get its own 4G network, thanks to this rugged lunar rover.
BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE: America Voted for a Rest, Not a Revolution. Elected as Not Trump, Biden aspires to be the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Joe Biden aspires to be the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so short of his showing up to work in a wheelchair and sucking on a cigarette holder, the first hundred days, which he marks this week, will serve as the most symbolic reminder of the president’s sense of historic purpose.
The ritual observation of the passage of FDR’s calendrical contrivance promises to be even more turgid than usual this year. President Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress, which he delivers on Wednesday, will come with special solemnity. We will be reminded that delivering the nation from the baleful legacy of a one-term Republican in the midst of a national crisis with an urgent flurry of executive and legislative initiatives is what Democrats do.
We can leave to future historians whether the creation of the White House Gender Policy Council will prove as consequential as that of the Tennessee Valley Authority. To be fair, different times pose different challenges. Eleanor at least would surely approve. Perhaps she’s having fireside chats with Dr. Jill the way she used to with Hillary Clinton.
FDR had a famously complaisant press covering him, but even he might have blanched at the deference shown by Mr. Biden’s media guardians. Newspapers did eventually rouse themselves to object that the 1937 effort to pack the Supreme Court might be constitutionally problematic. Today’s friendly stenographers don’t see the problem at all, and faithfully convey the White House line that the same idea is a much-needed “reform.”
To be fair, given the expected number of Obama era retreads in his cabinet, Biden voters were much more informed of what to expect from Joe Biden than FDR’s voters were in 1932:
It might sound odd coming from a libertarian, but I wish the Pelosi-Reid Democrats had more in common with Franklin Roosevelt. Not the Franklin Roosevelt who occupied the White House from 1933 to 1945, but the Franklin Roosevelt who aspired to the White House in the election of 1932. The Democratic platform of that year is a remarkable document, considering the way the party’s candidate went on to govern. It isn’t a libertarian manifesto—it endorses several subsidies and regulations—but it hardly embraces the enormous expansion in federal power that FDR would achieve. The very first plank calls for “an immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance to accomplish a saving of not less than twenty-five per cent in the cost of the Federal Government.” (It also asks “the states to make a zealous effort to achieve a proportionate result.”) Subsequent planks demand a balanced budget, a low tariff, the repeal of Prohibition, “a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards,” “no interference in the internal affairs of other nations,” and “the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.” The document concludes with a quote from Andrew Jackson: “equal rights to all; special privilege to none.” It sounds more like Ron Paul than Pelosi.
—“The New Franklin Roosevelts: Don’t count on a candidate’s campaign stances to tell you how he’ll behave in office,” Jesse Walker, Reason.com, April 10, 2008.
But between the New Deal and the Moral Equivalent of War from which it sprang from (including all of the Wilson administration retreads in Roosevelt’s administration), voters know that every Democrat president sees himself as spearheading the next Roosevelt administration. At a minimum, their operatives with bylines sure do:
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Americans Waking Up to Fact That Kamala Harris Is An Idiot. “Because nothing matters anymore and Joe Biden has the IQ of cheap vodka, he decided that the best person to back up his puppet presidency was the woman who the Democrats couldn’t wait to get rid of less than a year earlier.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: George Korda: Too many kids can’t read, and it’s crippling them for life. “There’s a seemingly endless series of educational improvement “reforms” proffered by a seemingly endless series of politicians, interest groups, and organizations at the local, state and national levels. When reforms are enacted, progress is touted, numbers are said to be ‘moving in the right direction,’ or ‘there’s more work to be done.’ Meanwhile, too many kids can’t read.”
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS IS MORE A GOAL STATEMENT THAN A WARNING: Darkness Falls: Bezos-Owned Washington Post To Stop Keeping Track of Biden’s Lies.
A CORE THEME OF THE MIDTERM AND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS WON’T BE TOO HARD TO FIGURE OUT:
Flashbacks:
● Biden approval numbers on immigration sink amid border crisis: poll.
● Jared Bernstein, member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors: “One thing we learned in the 1990s was that a surefire way to reconnect the fortunes of working people at all skill levels, immigrant and native-born alike, to the growing economy is to let the job market tighten up. A tight job market pressures employers to boost wage offers to get and keep the workers they need. One equally surefire way to sort-circuit this useful dynamic is to turn on the immigrant spigot every time some group’s wages go up.”
● Former Trump administration senior adviser Stephen Miller: Biden’s Immigration Plan Would “Erase America’s Nationhood.”
● “Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser. Labour threw open Britain’s borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a ‘truly multicultural’ country, a former Government adviser has revealed.”
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Around the world, mass immigration is only popular with the political elite. The reader will be left to contemplate why that might be.
DOG BITES MAN: Google Promised Its Contact Tracing App Was Completely Private — But It Wasn’t.
Google and Apple provided assurances that the data generated through the apps—people’s movements, who they might have come in contact with, and whether they reported testing positive for COVID-19—would be anonymized and would never be shared with anyone other than public health agencies.
But The Markup has learned that not only does the Android version of the contact tracing tool contain a privacy flaw, but when researchers from the privacy analysis firm AppCensus alerted Google to the problem back in February of this year, Google failed to change it. AppCensus was testing the system as part of a contract with the Department of Homeland Security. The company found no similar issues with the iPhone version of the framework.
“This fix is a one-line thing where you remove a line that logs sensitive information to the system log. It doesn’t impact the program, it doesn’t change how it works, ” said Joel Reardon, co-founder and forensics lead of AppCensus. “It’s such an obvious fix, and I was flabbergasted that it wasn’t seen as that.”
Don’t trust Google. Google is asshole.
WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING IN THE TRUDEAU ERA: Economist: Lockdowns ‘Greatest Peacetime Policy Failure’ in Canada’s History.
WHO SHOT ASHLI BABBITT?
IN CASE YOU DOUBTED THAT HIGHER EDUCATION IS OVERRUN WITH POLITICIZED GARBAGE: Pulitzer Prize-winning MacArthur ‘Genius’ Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times to become Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at UNC. I do like that “genius” is in quotes. This is kinda like giving Michael Bellesiles a chair in legal history — which, to. be fair, is entirely imaginable in 2021.