WELL, FETTERMAN ALWAYS IS CRINGEY: Oz releases his medical records and Fetterman’s response is… cringey.
Archive for 2022
September 24, 2022
STAY COMFORTABLE: Dickies Men’s Loose-Fit Cargo Work Pants. #CommissionEarned
CRIME SQUAD, EPISODE 2: New video from Reason TV.
KEN BURNS’S ANGRY NEW FILM: The director acknowledges The US and the Holocaust was inspired by America First.
Explicitly acknowledging that he was inspired to make the film by the rise of the America First movement, Burns said, “I have been making films for almost 50 years about the US, and also about us. When anyone tells you there’s a ‘them,’ that’s authoritarianism. All such distinctions are biological, scientific and political fictions. They are designed to create grievances.” Burns has regularly denounced Donald Trump, saying that his presidency took the country backwards, and has now attacked Ron DeSantis, saying that the Florida governor’s scheme to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard* was “basically saying that you can use a human life… and to put it in the position of becoming a political pawn in somebody’s authoritarian game.”
Note that while Burns is using “America First” as an attack on The Bad Orange Man and those eeeeevil Rethuglicans, the original America First group was a broad coalition of ideologies: “Like any mass political movement, America First was an amalgamation of groups and fellow travelers who sometimes shared little more in common than an opposition to America’s entry into the war. The ranks of the antiwar movement included pacifists and communists (at least until Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941), wild-haired liberals, straight-laced conservatives and everything in between.”
The Times of Israel interviewed historian Rafael Medoff on Sunday: PBS Holocaust documentary perpetuates well-worn myths to glorify FDR, says historian.
Early in his new film “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” documentarian Ken Burns claims the United States admitted more Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany than any other country on Earth.
The problem with this statement, according to historian Rafael Medoff, is that it flies in the face of publicly available data on refugees from that period.
Clocking in at six hours, “The U.S. and the Holocaust” begins airing on PBS this week. In recent press interviews, Burns said he attempted to handle Roosevelt “more critically” for “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” compared to the previous, somewhat glowing treatments of FDR in his other documentaries on the period.
Calling Burns “seriously mistaken” about the issue of Jewish refugees, Medoff told The Times of Israel that the discrepancy is connected to several other “well-worn myths” that appear in “The U.S. and the Holocaust.” These myths, said Medoff, run the gamut from why the US could not rescue Anne Frank to Roosevelt’s role in the “St. Louis” affair, alongside the perennial debate on bombing the tracks to Auschwitz.
* * * * * * * *
You were one of the historians consulted on a new Jerusalem memorial to James G. McDonald, the first ambassador of the US to Israel. As the key adviser to President Roosevelt on refugee issues, McDonald resigned his position in 1935 out of frustration for being unable to convince FDR and other leaders to take action. Why would Burns omit McDonald from a film focused on refugees?
More than a decade ago, the US Holocaust Museum published McDonald’s diaries. Subsequent research by the Wyman Institute revealed that McDonald had been much more critical of Roosevelt’s refugee policy than the editors of the diaries had acknowledged. So when the museum decided to start creating exhibits and programs promoting the notion that FDR tried to rescue the Jews, McDonald’s story became a problem — it contradicted the museum’s new narrative. McDonald was completely omitted from the museum’s 2018 exhibit on “Americans and the Holocaust” — despite the museum director’s explicit written promise to the McDonald family that he would be included.
Ken Burns has said his film is based on that exhibit, and the museum’s staff members were his consultants, so it appears that Burns’s omission of McDonald is consistent with the museum’s approach.
It’s tragic that the exhibit and the film would exclude this noble American statesman, whose efforts to help the Jews deserved to be highlighted, not ignored.
From an earlier Times of Israel article quoting Medoff on James McDonald: New Evidence Shows FDR’s Bigotry Derailed Many Holocaust Rescue Plans.
Flashback: New Documents Reveal FDR’s Eugenic Project to ‘Resettle’ Jews During World War II. As the Holocaust raged, the American president secretly asked his government to study the possible resettlement of remaining European refugees in Africa and South America. His goal: for Jews to be ‘spread thin all over the world.’
* I too confuse Martha’s Vineyard and Auschwitz. Notice that Burns isn’t angry with President Biden for re-opening the floodgates on illegal immigration — and turning illegal immigrants into political pawns in the first place, but he’s quite cross with DeSantis for exposing the utter hypocrisy of the Martha’s Vineyard wine and cheese lawn sign crowd:
As Karol Markowicz writes: DeSantis was right to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. We need to bring border crisis to Democrats.
Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.
The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.
It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.
Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.
These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.
Why, it’s as if: Democrats Discover Only The Federal Government Can Solve The Border Crisis.
YAWN: Socialist students hold ‘We Won’t Go Back’ march. Dozens of angry students. Well, a couple of dozen. And they’re dumb enough to think that socialism represents some sort of progress, when it’s a failed 19th century ideology.
SCHEDULED FOR 7:32 PM: Watch SpaceX launch another 52 Starlink satellites, land rocket tonight. It’s news that this is routine.
IT’S BEEN A ZOMBIE FOR DECADES. LET IT DIE. Inside the struggle to reinvent ‘SNL’ as nine actors exit before premiere.
HMM: If the ‘My 401k’ trend is ANY indication, Democrats are in seriously DEEP crap come November (here are some of the ANGRIEST tweets).. “There’s a reason Democrats want us focused on abortion and made-up fascism and NOT the economy.”
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Who’s our real president? Joe Biden — or the staffers who keep walking back his comments?
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Climate protester set himself on fire at tennis match and instantly regretted it.
A UK climate protester literally put his skin in the game when he ran onto a tennis court before Roger Federer’s final match at O2 Arena in London and set himself on fire. That was surely meant as a sign of his absolute commitment to the cause but apparently no one had told him that fire is hot.
Wearing a white T-shirt reading “End UK Private Jets,” the protester, a young man, appeared on the court during the afternoon singles match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Diego Schwartzman. Sitting down near the net on Schwartzman’s side of the court, the man briefly set fire to his right arm, and to the court, as security officials ran toward him.
The protester appeared to immediately regret the decision to set fire to himself, and quickly put out the flames with his left hand while a small fire burned on the court next to him. A staff member smothered the on-court fire with a suit jacket while the protester calmly waited to be removed.
Once the fire was out, and with Schwartzman keeping a safe distance, three security guards carried the man off the court to a chorus of boos from the crowd.
The whole thing only lasted about 30 seconds and accomplished nothing.
Michael Shellenberger has a thread on the intersection of apocalyptic environmentalism and exhibitionist narcissism that’s well worth a read:
In contrast, in the sixties, protestors who self-immolated were made of much sterner stuff:
NOT THERE YET: Tropical Storm Ian forecast to hit Cayman as hurricane on Sunday. Flights have been canceled, but the pics my friends there are posting on social media this morning still look calm and beautiful. The calm before the storm.
DON’T FORGET HUBBLE: The incredible images of deep, deep space produced by the James Webb telescope have captured the imagination of the world, and for good reason. But its predecessor, the Hubble Telescope, did some rather amazing stuff, too, as seen this morning on HillFaith in the short video “Of Fingerprints and Galaxies.”
SHAMELESS: California is withholding standardized test results until after Election Day.
As always, when they’re hiding stuff, it’s not because it’ll make them look good.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Bogs Waterproof, Snow and Rain Boots. #CommissionEarned
ROD DREHER: Sex With Children: The Gender Ideology End Game.
Irene Montero, a Communist who is the Minister of Equality in the left-wing Podemos government in Spain, says the quiet part out loud: that equality means children have the right to have sex if they want to. Here’s the clip, in Spanish, but with English subtitles (turn on the CC on the YouTube frame):
This is it. This is the end game of these queer theorists and gender ideologues: the sexualization of children. It was always going to end up here. This is what all these drag queen story hours mean, and these “family-friendly drag shows”. It’s all about sexualizing children and grooming them to become prey for pedophiles — sorry, “Minor-Attracted Persons.”
Exit questions: “Did they even go this far in Weimar Germany? How much more of this are we prepared to tolerate?”
DAN MITCHELL IS HAPPY WITH LIZ TRUSS’S START: The Much-Needed Reincarnation of Thatchernomics.
DECLINE IS A CHOICE: The Chevy Camaro Dies in 2024, Will Be Replaced by Electric Sedan.
Currently, the two-door, gas-fed Chevy Camaro is without a future. But it has a futuristic replacement, according to Automotive News. That replacement is an all-electric sedan. Commence double takes, spit takes, and hot takes. At least the four-door that’s slated to succeed the Camaro is billed as a “performance” sedan.
General Motors is of course in the midst of a huge transition toward electric vehicles. By 2035, the automaker hopes to go all-electric, no longer selling gas- and diesel-powered cars, trucks, or SUVs. Read between the lines, and GM isn’t merely tearing up its internal combustion lineup and starting over, nor will it blindly adhere to its 2035 goal if the market hasn’t shifted to support such a move—i.e., the all-electric gambit is a goal, not a promise, and if buyers aren’t ready for only EVs, GM may still provide gas- and diesel-fed vehicles to meet demand.
Flashback: Biden seeks to make half of new U.S. auto fleet electric by 2030.
Which isn’t very surprising for an administration staffed, from the (figurehead) top on down with Obama administration retreads.
TRANSLATION: GET READY FOR FUNEMPLOYMENT: Google CEO Pichai tells employees not to ‘equate fun with money’ in heated all-hands meeting.
Flashback: Google needs a new CEO, but dumping Sundar Pichai is not enough.
I just had a peek at a new book by a friend, and one of our top contributors at The Stream, the gifted Mark Judge: The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi. For its intrinsic merits, and for the story it tells about the dangerous attacks on freedom that we all face, it deserves to become an instant best-seller.
I barely knew Mark Judge, except as an arts columnist, before he became the target of a skilled, professional hit job. Or not the target exactly, so much as the patsy whom cynical politicians hoped to use (and if need be destroy) in order to take out their actual target, Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. I offered Judge this endorsement for his book:
I was tempted to compare Mark Judge to Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel. They were likewise targeted for personal destruction by regimes that perverted their countries’ constitutions, and were desperate to cling to power. But that isn’t entirely apt. Both Walesa and Havel at some point consciously chose to enter political activism, to pick up a stone and challenge Goliath.
Mark Judge never did. He just went to high school, struggled with alcoholism, and wrote a memoir about it. That’s it.
But highly paid professional opposition researchers hired to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh at any cost came across Judge’s name. They pored over his memoir’s details, and used it as a ‘story bible’ for the attack on Kavanaugh. Then they used every weapon, legal and illegal, in their arsenal to try to force Judge to somehow help them credential their fiction.
He stood firm, which shocked them. The truth prevailed for a change. And after the Dobbs decision, we live in a new and better America. In large part, we have my friend Mark Judge to thank. I hope every American reads this book, and profits from the example of his courage.
Read the whole thing.
LISA SCHIFFREN: Manipulating Our Kids for ‘Social and Emotional’ Purposes.
GRIM MILESTONE WATCH: The Dow Drops Below 30,000.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average had a bad morning today and lost nearly 700 points, putting it below 30,000 for the first time in almost two years.
Between the Fed’s monetary policy and continued concerns over inflation, traders could send stocks into a bear market. If the Dow closes below 29,439.72, it would be the first such instance since the Covid recession.
Do the numbers signify a global bear market?
Business surveys Friday showed economic activity in Europe declined sharply in September, highlighting how growth outside the U.S. has also been knocked off course. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is experiencing a once-in-a-generation rally that threatens to worsen the slowdown in global growth and effectively export inflation around the globe.
Central banks around the world, including policy makers in Norway, Switzerland and South Africa, have lifted borrowing costs. The global commitment to policy tightening has further eroded hopes among investors for a soft landing, or only a modest hit to growth instead of a full-blown recession.
“All central banks are singing from the same hymn sheet: They’re trying to get on top of inflation no matter what,” said Antoine Bouvet, a senior rates strategist at ING. “The Fed set the tone very clearly…they will continue regardless of the economic pain inflicted on the economy.”
The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 slid 2.3%, dropping to its lowest level since December 2020.
Usually, when stocks fall, bonds offer a haven to nervous investors. But prices have been dropping for both this year, an unusual coupling that highlights just how anxious many buyers are, and how starkly different the investing environment has been in the first nine months of the year. Yields on the 10-year Treasury and two-year Treasury once again roamed near levels not seen in more than a decade.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 3.695% this week, notching an eighth consecutive week of gains. Two-year Treasury yields climbed to 4.212%, the highest since October 2007. Yields rise as bond prices fall.
“The Dow Is 1,400 Points Lower Than When Biden Took Office,” the Daily Wire notes.
Exit question: Is Team Biden purposefully grinding down the middle class?
I REMEMBER WHEN WHISTLEBLOWERS WERE MEDIA HEROES: FBI whistleblower paying the price for exposing unjust ‘persecution’ of conservative Americans.
Bombshell allegations by FBI Special Agent Steve Friend contained in a whistleblower complaint filed late Wednesday with the Department of Justice inspector general reveal a politicized Washington, DC, FBI field office cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism, and using an “overzealous” January 6 investigation to harass conservative Americans and violate their constitutional rights.
Friend, 37, a respected 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, was suspended Monday, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Fla., after complaining to his supervisors about the violations.
He was declared absent without leave last month for refusing to participate in SWAT raids that he believed violated FBI policy and were a use of excessive force against Jan. 6 subjects accused of misdemeanor offenses.
This American hero, the father of two small children, has blown up his “dream career” because he could not live with his conscience if he continued to be part of what he sees as the unjust persecution of conservative Americans.
“I have an oath to uphold the Constitution,” he told supervisors when he asserted his conscientious objection to joining an Aug. 24 raid on a J6 subject in the Jacksonville, Fla., area. “I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”
Friend, who did not vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, said he told his immediate boss twice that he believed the raid, and the investigative process leading up to it, violated FBI policy and the subject’s right under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial and Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.
If he’d refused to raid illegals under Trump, he’d have his own MSNBC show.