Archive for 2017

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Will California Ever Thrive Again? “In impoverished central California towns such as Mendota, where thousands of acres were idled due to water cutoffs, once-busy farmworkers live in shacks. But even in opulent San Francisco, the sidewalks full of homeless people do not look much different. . . . Elites need to go back and restudy the state’s can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government — at least if everyday Californians are ever again to have affordable gas, electricity and homes, safe roads and competitive schools.”

YEAH, THAT’S HOW IT LOOKS TO ME, TOO: Michael Walsh: The Times ‘exposé’ on Donald Trump Jr. is a big yawn.

The news was delivered by the New York Times in the breathless tones that might announce a cure for cancer or the discovery of life on Mars:

“President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.”

To which a rational response is … who wouldn’t? And also: so, what? A third response is unprintable. . . .

According to the younger Trump, the Clinton angle was just a ruse: “Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered,” he told the Times.

“The real reason, it seems, was that Veselnitskaya wanted to lobby for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, an Obama-era law that allows the US to deny visas to Russians thought guilty of human-rights violations.” In retaliation, the Russians promptly ended the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans.

And that’s what all the fuss is about? No campaign in its right mind would turn down an offer of information on their opponent. That is what opposition research is all about. You can bet Hillary wouldn’t have hung up on the person who claimed to have dirt on the Donald. After all, the Clinton campaign lobbied the comedian Tom Arnold two days before the election to release potentially embarrassing footage from Trump’s TV show, “The Apprentice.” Arnold declined.

But in the end, the lawyer had nothing, gave nothing, got nothing in return, in a meeting that lasted 20 minutes. This is a scandal?

They hope that the rubes will think so.

SERIOUS QUESTION: CAN JAMES COMEY GET ANYTHING RIGHT? Comey’s private memos on Trump conversations contained classified material.

More than half of the memos former FBI chief James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents.

This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton for in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election.

Comey testified last month he considered the memos to be personal documents and that he shared at least one of them with a Columbia University lawyer friend. . . .

But when the seven memos Comey wrote regarding his nine conversations with Trump about Russia earlier this year were shown to Congress in recent days, the FBI claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government documents.

While the Comey memos have been previously reported, this is the first time there has been a number connected to the amount of the memos the ex-FBI chief wrote.

Four of the memos had markings making clear they contained information classified at the “secret” or “confidential” level, according to officials directly familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the FBI on Sunday declined to comment.

FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property.

His firing is looking pretty darn justified. It’s his hiring that should raise questions.

CALIFORNIA’S SURE HAS BEEN HAVING QUITE A RUN OF “BAD LUCK” LATELY. Victor Davis Hanson: Will California Ever Thrive Again?

Elites need to go back and restudy the state’s can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government — at least if everyday Californians are ever again to have affordable gas, electricity and homes, safe roads and competitive schools.

I doubt Jerry Brown wants to admit that his old man was a far better governor than he’s been.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SOCIAL SCIENCE: “Millennials are much more likely to flourish financially if they follow the ‘success sequence’—getting at least a high school degree, working full-time, and marrying before having any children, in that order.”

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: “At the Impeach Trump March in Chicago 7/2/17. A group of protesters applaud a speech comprised almost entirely of Adolf Hitler quotes given by Shad Daley. This was 20 seconds after saying they need to fight fascism. After the speech, the organizing member of refusefascism.org was desperate to get Shad more involved. Another wonderful example of how the left doesn’t understand their own hypocrisy and ignorance.”

Watch the video here.

Hey, somebody should write a book about this phenomenon.

LEFTY ESTABLISHMENT TODAY — THE “DEEP STATE” IS A PARANOID FICTION. LEFTY ESTABLISHMENT IN 2014: Anatomy Of The Deep State.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T WORKING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED. This ‘shaman’ charges thousands to protect your wardrobe from spirits:

For centuries, shamans have called upon spirits for guidance on some of life’s most pressing questions.

On a recent Thursday in Brooklyn, Colleen McCann closed her eyes and channeled her spirit guides for a very important mission: determining Helena Krodel’s power colors.

“For daytime negotiations, it’s soft pink, taupe nudes or blue . . . Black is nighttime negotiations,” McCann said. “[The guides are] saying neutral tones work really well for you because you have a lot of fire — plus, you’re rocking red lipstick a lot these days. What cools the element of fire? [The colors of] water or earth.”

For the past year, McCann, 37, has been the in-house shaman at Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s much-mocked lifestyle Web site. In addition to writing how-to articles on intuition for the site, she’s curated an “energy clearing kit” — complete with dried sage, a feather, and a smudge bowl in which sage is burnt for ritual purposes — that sells on Goop.com for $195.

She also works with high-powered, spirituality-seeking fashion editors and finance execs, helping them to better understand themselves, their true paths and their most flattering wardrobes.

In his 2007 book, Acoustic Design for the Home Studio, music journalist Mitch Gallagher quotes from veteran studio designer Russ Berger, in a subhead titled “Holy Eggs:”

“We once worked with the director of a Hawaiian public radio station who recounted a story about their first studio. On an excruciatingly tight budget, the original studios were treated with egg cartons. As is their custom with new construction, the local Kahuna was invite out to bless the facility for a small honorarium.

“The Kahuna was a rather large, rotund lady in full native dress, with all the usual acoustical testing accoutrements: beads, rattles, the works. Upon stepping into the studio for the first time, she grasped her chest in mock horror and circular swoon, and solemnly exclaimed, ‘Ohhh, the tortured souls of the dead chickens! This will be very expensive for me to bless and make this right!’

“Over the years, I’ve come to fondly remember her as the ultimate consultant…”

No. There is another.

GERMANY’S NEWEST INTELLECTUAL ANTIHERO:

After World War II, the Allied occupiers, as Mr. Sieferle sees it, saddled Germans with a false idea of their own history — the idea that there was something premodern about Germany, a fundamental difference between it and the West. That may describe Russia, but not Germany, and Germany’s modernity is painful for Westerners to face. “If Germany belonged to the most progressive, civilized, cultivated countries,” he writes, “then ‘Auschwitz’ means that, at any moment, the human ‘progress’ of modernity can go into reverse.”

The ultimate form of “bad luck.” Read the whole thing.

Related: ‘Halt die Klappe!’ They Said.

IF YOU CARRY A GUN, SHOULD YOU CARRY A RELOAD? It’s very unlikely that you’ll need to reload. But if you do need to reload, it’s very likely that you’ll need to do so rather urgently.