JUDGES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE MADE OF STERNER STUFF: Terrified judge in Waukesha massacre case calls recess after Darrell Brooks stares her down: “I need to take a break,” Judge Dorow said, “this man right now is having a staredown with me. It’s very disrespectful, he pounded his fist, frankly, it makes me scared and we’re taking a break.”
Archive for 2022
October 23, 2022
NOT MY FIRST CHOICE, BUT NOBODY CONSULTED ME: Rishi Sunak Gains Edge in U.K. Prime Minister Race as Boris Johnson Drops Out. “Former U.K. Chancellor Rishi Sunak looks set to become Britain’s next prime minister after his rival for the job Boris Johnson pulled out the race late Sunday evening, clearing the path for Mr. Sunak to win the ongoing contest to become leader of the Conservative Party.”
More here.
I would have preferred Penny Mordaunt but, as I said, I wasn’t consulted.
OPEN THREAD: Express yourself.
SLIPPAGE: Ariane 6 first launch slips to late 2023.
Related: ESA moves two missions to Falcon 9.
DAVID BERNSTEIN: I’ve Read Harvard’s Brief in the Pending Racial Preferences Case, and I Have a Question. “How, for that matter, did Harvard conclude that Hispanics, who federal rules tell us “can be of any race,” constitute a racial minority such that Hispanic students are the only students who can be of 100% European ethnic heritage and still get a racial preference? Did Harvard even ever consider this question, and if not, how can its claim to deference for its academic decision-making regarding admissions be taken seriously?”
I highly recommend David’s excellent new book, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America. As you can see at the link, I blurbed it. #CommissionEarned
JULIETTE OCHIENG: The Spiritual Nature of Race-Baiting.
Hit her tipjar if you like her.
UPDATE: People are saying that this is paywalled, but I just clicked through and I’m not a subscriber.
JULIE KELLY: Race-Baiting Celebrity J6 Cop Once Involved in Race-Related Lawsuit.
Fanone has lots to say in his memoir—heavily sprinkled with obscenities—while ranting about Donald Trump and his supporters. (Fanone begins with a brazen lie that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died of “wounds” sustained on January 6.)
He condemns Republican lawmakers for refusing to go along with the “insurrection” narrative and he names names: A secretly recorded meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is described in the book. “While you were on the phone with [Trump], I was getting the shit kicked out of me, almost losing my life,” Fanone told McCarthy in 2021. “The way that he, you know, saying this is what happens when you steal an election. Go home. I love you. What the f*** is that!?”
But one name is missing from Fanone’s profane screed: Michael A. Maddox.
And for good reason. In 2014, the District of Columbia settled a lawsuit filed against two D.C. Metro police officers for violating the civil rights of Maddox, a black attorney working at the time in the legal department at Howard University. The city paid Maddox $175,000 in damages.
One of the officers named in the lawsuit was Michael Fanone.
Read the whole thing.
JUST NBC THE RACISM!
Shot:
Amidst all the Sturm und Drang surrounding [the 1980 episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Malcolm McDowell], Eddie Murphy’s network television debut slipped by without the slightest notice. It was just as well, because Eddie himself was humiliated by it.
He appeared in a sketch called “In Search of the Negro Republican,” which happened to be the one genuinely witty moment on the McDowell show. Written by David Sheffield, it was a parody of the old Mutual of Omaha nature series, Wild Kingdom. Charles Rocket played Marlin Perkins, Joe Piscopo his intrepid assistant, Jim Fowler. Fowler, in hopes of flushing out that rarest of political beasts, the Negro Republican, impersonated a waiter at a cocktail party, casually asking the black guests questions that would reveal their political sympathies. When he discovered a black Republican, a stuffy gentleman in a three-piece suit, he tagged him so that his migration patterns could be followed.
The humiliation for Eddie came not from the substance of the sketch, but from the part he played in it: He was an extra, sitting on a couch, seen only for the briefest moment on-camera, lost in the cocktail-party crowd. He didn’t have a line. The Negro Republican in the three-piece suit was played by an actor hired especially for that one show.
—From the 1986 book Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad.
Chaser: At Red State, today: MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross Rails Against Minority Candidates for Not Being Democrats.
During a Saturday morning broadcast with former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, Cross slammed minority Republican candidates for supposedly not being “voices of color,” whatever the hell that means.
“Despite the fact the GOP’s racist rhetoric has not slowed at all, they have begun hyping up, get this, their ‘diverse’ candidates,” she said while forming air quotes with her hands. “According to numbers provided by the National Republican Congressional Committee, 80 Republican incumbents or candidates on the ballot next month are women, 33 are Latino, 28 are black, 13 are Asian and three are native Americans.”
“But faces of color do not always equate to voices of color,” Cross added. “As our own NBC’s Scott Wong points out in his good reporting, the leadership will almost be entirely composed of white men. Really, this sounds more like the political equivalent of ‘some of my best friends are black.’”
“I will kick it up with you, Michael,” Cross continued. “Because, you and I have had this conversation so many times on camera and off camera, you are my only Republican friend, I think, my friend.
Maybe it’s time to widen your circle of friends to explore some more diverse and inclusive viewpoints, Tiffany. Especially after Steele called MAGA Republicans “lice, fleas, and blood-sucking ticks” on MSNBC this past Tuesday.
A REVIEW FROM TAMARA KEEL: Bond Arms Roughneck: Cyberpunk Derringer. “The very idea of a 9mm Luger stainless derringer has a sort of cyberpunk vibe to it, like a hideout gun for a riverboat gambler … in space.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. “Fact checks” are almost always intended to deceive or distract you.
It’s telling that they didn’t produce the “fact checks” until the truth started getting out.
STAY WARM: Carhartt Men’s Knit Cuffed Beanie. #CommissionEarned
READER FAVORITE: Keurig K-Mini Coffee Maker. #CommissionEarned
I HEAR THE CAMERA IS GOOD: Pixel 7 Pro review: Still the best Android phone you can buy.
FASTER, PLEASE: Study points toward new ways to prevent liver cancer.
GOOD FOR WHEN THINGS GO SOUTH: Mr. Heater F232000 MH9BX Buddy 4,000-9,000-BTU Indoor-Safe Portable Propane Radiant Heater.
UPDATE: From the comments, here’s a bundle with a one-burner stove, though it’s pricier. #CommissionEarned
STOPPED CLOCK: Biden makes a free market move – hearing aids are now available over the counter.
Now do birth control.
GIVE THEM A LITTLE PRIVACY, GUYS: Astronomers using James Webb Telescope observe ‘merging of galaxies.’
20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Watching The Red Wave Approach Shore.
Some “safe seats” aren’t very safe anymore for suddenly vulnerable Democrats, and that has panicked PACs moving campaign dollars to protect previously invulnerable seats.
We’re down to the wire in Election 2022, and stuff just got real.
Today’s news takes us to deep blue Oregon, where onetime shoo-in Kurt Schrader just got the rug pulled out from under him by his own Democrat Party as he fights off Republican Amy Ryan Courser. According to AdImpact (as spotted by Josh Kraushaar), party ad spending for Schrader in the 5th district was shifted to the 6th to boost Andrea Salinas against Republican Mike Erickson.
Maybe you’re thinking this kind of thing happens all the time, and it does.
But it doesn’t often happen that Democrats appear to be writing off a district that Presidentish Joe Biden won in 2020 by nine points, to shore up a district that Biden won by 13 points.
If 10-and-up is the Democrats’ new firewall, they’re in bigger trouble than even I imagined. Complicating things even more for Oregon Democrats, gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek (looking to replace the outgoing and execrable Kate Brown) regularly polls behind Republican Christine Drazan.
Exit question: Just how bad will the midterms be for the Democrats?
WATCH: Cops Tase Fleeing Felon, He Explodes Into a Human Fireball.
#Arkansas
*potentially disturbing*
Dashcam video (reportedly in Little Rock) from October 13th shows a pursuit suspect on a motorcycle fleeing from police on foot when a taser is used; igniting the suspect into a roaring fireball. They apparently had a jerrycan in their backpack. pic.twitter.com/hFqVqzMVLe— Shane B. Murphy (@shanermurph) October 21, 2022
So why did Mr. Motorbike go completely Kerosene? The Police Pursuits YouTube channel offers an explanation:
Unbeknownst to the troopers, the suspect had a canister of gas in his backpack. The taser prongs likely punctured the can.
He’s one fortunate flamer:Burns were mostly superficial, but obviously very painful. He is expected to make a full recovery.
I’d give the biker a solid 9/9 on the “F*** around and find out” axis (language warning):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6sbPCIEMyI
JUST A PINCH OF RADICAL CHIC: Insurrection: New York Times Promotes Sabotage, ‘Guerrilla Warfare’ to End Fossil Fuels.
In January of 2021, The New York Times promoted a book titled How To Blow Up a Pipeline by transparently radical author Andreas Malm. On Thursday, the Times directly promoted Malm by publishing his guest essay under the headline “History May Absolve the Soup Throwers.” That’s too tender a headline, for Malm thinks soup throwing at a Van Gogh painting isn’t optimal:
I tend to think sabotage is most effective when it is precise and gritty. When activists from the same group smashed gas stations in April this year, they hit the nail on the head. Gasoline, unlike a van Gogh painting, is a fuel of global warming. There is a whole planetary layer of stations, pipelines, platforms, derricks, terminals, mines and shafts that must be shut down to save humanity and other life-forms. When governments refuse to undertake this work, it is up to the rest of us to initiate it. That is the rationale for sabotage: to aim straight for the bags of coal.
While the Times routinely rails against the “insurrection” on January 6 and sees all “domestic terrorism” as a right-wing problem, it promotes a climate insurrection and left-wing domestic terrorism. Malm explicitly champions sabotage and violence — even guerrilla warfare! — as an efficient path to ending fossil fuels[.]
In accordance with the prophecy:
And speaking of America’s Newspaper of Record: To Protest Contributors To Climate Change, Leonardo DiCaprio Glues Self To Self.
