CHRIS QUEEN: Seeking a Christian Civilization — Not ‘Christian Nationalism.’ “While a minority of voices are calling for actual “Christian nationalism,” most Christians understand that it’s an impractical idea. Christians can’t agree on theology (beyond the basics), worship style, and other non-essential tenets of the faith, so how can we expect Christians to govern an American theocracy?”
Archive for 2024
January 24, 2024
I GOT IT LOOSE FOR THEM, I SWEAR: NASA finally opens OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample canister after freeing stuck lid. “After months of anticipation, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has achieved a significant milestone by successfully accessing the treasure trove of asteroid material that the probe collected during its billion-mile journey.”
MSNBC ANCHOR DECRIES CHARACTER PROMOTED BY MSNBC: Maddow: If Trump is Elected, “That’ll Be the End of Politics.”
Rachel @Maddow describing Trump’s dictator-worshiping pitch to voters: “If you pick me, that’ll be the end of politics, and you won’t have to deal with politics anymore. You won’t have to deal with contested elections, you won’t have to deal with contests or divisions when it comes to power, you’ll have a strongman leader and I’ll just do what I want. And won’t that be a lot simpler? That’s what he’s offering. That strongman model is what the Republican base is enthused about.”
Irony, much? The person she and Psaki support is Joe Biden. Biden has acted as a dictator in office and Democrats like Maddow don’t seem to have a problem with that.
As Charles Cooke asked the left in 2016, “Herewith, an under-asked question for our friends on the progressive left: ‘Has Donald Trump’s remarkable rise done anything to change your mind as to the ideal strength of the State?’”
Because the left — before and after Trump — can imagine a state so large, their motto would be best described as “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato,” to coin a phrase.
Flashback: The many times Donald Trump and ‘Morning Joe’ yukked it up.
SEE BETTER: Bestrip 12×42 Binoculars for Adults with Tripod. #CommissonEarned
WELL, FOR ONE THING, PRESIDENTS HAVE ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY, NOT QUALIFIED IMMUNITY, AS PROVIDED IN Nixon v. Fitzgerald. In both cases, the immunity is only for civil damages, not criminal liability. But there are reasonable arguments that have been made, including by the Justice Department, for presidential immunity to criminal prosecution — and anyway, if everyone else can argue for, and sometimes get, new constitutional decisions from the Supreme Court, why should Trump be barred? He may be wrong (he probably is, but not certainly) but as usual the righteous indignation that meets a Trump claim is mostly because it’s a Trump claim, not because of its validity or lack thereof.
For the record, I oppose both qualified immunity and absolute immunity, both of which are judicial inventions without any basis in the Constitution — the latter being enjoyed by judges and prosecutors as well as the President — but that’s not the point here. And given the degradation of our political and justice systems, you can probably make a better argument today for immunity from criminal prosecution than for civil immunity.
HAVE YOU TRIED JUST ONCE NOT VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS? Black Chicago Democrats in Open Revolt Against the Party Over Migrant Crisis.
(MOSTLY) ON TIME AND (LARGELY) ON BUDGET: Pentagon OKs B-21 for low-rate production after successful tests.
The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office is in charge of the B-21′s acquisition program, and set an unusual strategy that includes building those test aircraft as close to a production model as possible. This means that the test B-21s are built using the same manufacturing processes and tooling as production bombers. A defense official said in the Pentagon’s statement this approach, which differs from the usual method of flight prototyping, allowed production to start more quickly than usual.
The defense official said the Air Force has worked with Northrop Grumman to create a “digital ecosystem” for the B-21 throughout its lifecycle.
“The engineering and manufacturing data used on the production line will be delivered with the aircraft and combined with modern collaboration and maintenance tools to make the B-21 affordable to buy, fly and sustain at scale,” the official said.
Always take those operating cost projections with an entire salt lick, but before the lockdowns and Bidenflation, Northrop and the Air Force were on track to deliver the first B-21s on time and on budget.
HERE WE GO AGAIN? ‘Bidenflation II: Fiscal Boogaloo’ Another Sequel Nobody Asked For. “Just when wages were finally starting to catch up with Biden’s first round of inflation, too.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA bounces laser off ‘Oreo-sized’ mirror on the moon for 1st time, paving the way for high-precision lunar landings. “The long-awaited success is an important proof-of-concept for NASA, which is planning to use more retroreflectors in future missions to the moon, including the upcoming Artemis missions.”
LEARN TO CODE: They Created This Term to Smear Average Americans. Now It’s Come Back to Haunt Them.
Liberal media outlets are starting to get pinched. While it’s sad when anyone gets fired, these folks were at the forefront of shaming those whose employment they determined was less-than, archaic, or not in keeping with the ways of the new world, whatever that means. In other words, if it required manual labor, the media, Democrats, and the coastal elite viewed it as a state of serfdom. Coal miners were a popular target. Whole communities that dot Appalachia were subjected to what some would call a regional genocide under the Obama presidency. His agenda took a hatchet to coal jobs, and most of these towns seldom recovered.
That’s when the “learn to code” smear was tossed into the mix by liberal reporters to coal miners and other workers who lost their livelihoods. The labor was viewed as inferior if it didn’t require a college education. Even worse, reporters mocked these newly unemployed workers, blaming them for being uneducated. The job retraining programs were a publicity stunt. Even labor unions knew this was a ruse. So, it was delicious revenge to see LA Times employees essentially saying that “learn to code” is heartless and unoriginal amid the layoffs. No, you don’t get to play that game. You created it. Now, sit there like good children, be wrong, and shut up. You lost your job—you don’t have a right to say anything.
Related: Ex CNNer Chris Cillizza Community Noted AND Ratioed After Denying Biden Ever Said This.
Flashback: Then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Defends Twitter’s #LearntoCode Purges. As Steve noted in 2019, “Dorsey claims that #LearnToCode is coded language for some kind of threat, when in fact it originated with asshole members of the press who somehow didn’t get purged when they used it against ordinary Americans who had lost their jobs to Obama’s anti-coal regulations.”
And Frank J. Fleming’s irony is going right over the heads of the many Twitter users who would love to use journalistic tools to destroy someone for having different political beliefs:
LOL'ing at all the replies that didn't get it. https://t.co/QFa5OuojuF
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) January 24, 2024
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Flashback: The Coming ‘Symbolic Analyst’ Meltdown.
BIGOTRY AND EXCUSES MASQUERADING AS THOUGHT: ‘People of color’ can’t be racist against whites, UW-Madison teaches law students.
OUR ELITES AREN’T WORTHY OF THE WORD: Hunter’s ‘Sugar Bro’ Evasive Testimony Gets Him Into a Different Kind of Trouble.
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, ONLY CANDIDATES OF COLOR NEED APPLY.
A member of the Faculty of Color group complained about having white faculty present for the job interviews:
[W]hen the candidate is White, it is just awkward. The last meeting was uncomfortable, and I would go as far as burdensome for me. Can we change the policy to not do these going forward with White faculty?
Imagine a culture so perverse that people with doctorates are just throwing this stuff out there like it’s not full Jim Crow.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE: Army Reveals It Fired Female Commander in Troubled Brigade After Claims of Sexual Assaults on Male Soldiers.
Col. Meghann Sullivan served as commander of the 5th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade, at the base in Washington state. She was relieved of command Oct. 13, but this is the first time her firing has been reported.
Military.com first reported on her suspension and the subsequent investigation into her conduct in April. That reporting was part of the publication’s investigation into the 5th SFAB, which uncovered potentially systemic issues with counterproductive leadership and performance and morale struggles among its rank and file.
The investigation into the 5th SFAB included reviewing an unredacted command climate survey in addition to hundreds of internal Army emails, voice recordings, videos and text messages.
At least she wasn’t able to hide behind her sex and keep her command.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Always a Good Time When We Can Stop Paying Attention to New Hampshire. “Given her clinically insane response to her third-place finish in Iowa last week, I was surprised that Haley didn’t say that this ‘is now a one-woman race’ in her speech last night.”
WHY IS HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH A CESSPIT OF HATRED AND BIGOTRY? At UNC, Anti-Semitism Is Too Close to Call. “So, at the end of the day, the faculty of the University of North Carolina couldn’t bring itself to condemn the statement, at a UNC event, that Gaza’s massacre of Jews on October 7 was ‘a beautiful day.’ The Faculty Council voted 32-29, with six abstentions, to table the resolution condemning anti-Semitism on campus. The resolution was just too controversial for liberal college professors to get behind.”
“YOU CANNOT EAT TREES:” Scottish Farmers Protest New Green “Rewilding” Policies.
The thing is, the proponents of those policies know that you can’t eat trees.
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: China’s Stock-Market Rout Has Become a Political Problem.
The State Council, the country’s top government body, said Monday that authorities should take stronger and more effective measures to stabilize markets and boost confidence. It called for better regulations, more transparency and an attempt to improve the quality of listed companies.
The cabinet meeting, which analysts said was a direct response to the stock market selloff, was chaired by Chinese Premier Li Qiang—the country’s No. 2 leader. It led to speculation that China is planning a big stimulus package to boost the stock market, although market participants said the details are murky.
Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index rallied in response, closing the day up 2.6%—its best performance this year. In mainland China, the CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indexes also closed slightly higher.
The meeting came days after stock analysts noticed another sign of strong government support: a rash of buying by the so-called national team, a group of state-linked firms that Beijing sometimes pushes to buy shares and other assets. The national team is typically defined by analysts to include insurers, pension funds and China’s sovereign-wealth fund.
What’s the Mandarin for “quantitative easing?”
MY LATEST NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Why I love the blue-state refugees moving to my red state.
CNN ACTUALLY RAN SOMETHING NICE ABOUT DEPLORABLES?
I seriously cannot believe CNN actually aired this!!! 👀🔥
Rep. Dean Phillips on meeting MAGA for the first time.
“I gotta tell you guys, I went to a Donald Trump rally a couple of nights ago. I’ve never been to one. I had an event across the street. I saw the line of people… pic.twitter.com/y0GfCQnKRs
— Steve 🇺🇸 (@SteveLovesAmmo) January 23, 2024
AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WOULD BE MY GUESS:
Trump will be the GOP nominee
What we don’t know yet is how much donor money is going to be wasted over the next month
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 24, 2024
SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR TOOLS OF THE REGIME: RealClearInvestigations: Leniency on Tap for Anti-Trump Leaker of Thousands of Tax Returns.
MEH. SHE BLEW HER CHANCE INSULTING MCCAIN VOTERS IN ARIZONA RIGHT BEFORE ELECTION DAY: Audio Suggests That ‘Powerful People’ Tried to Bribe Kari Lake to ‘Go Away.’
I liked Lake — a lot — but you don’t have to be a McCain fan to understand what a self-own that was, causing her to underperform every other statewide GOP candidate.