COMING SOON FROM ROGER KIMBALL AND ENCOUNTER: Vox Populi: The Perils and Promises of Populism.
Archive for 2017
October 22, 2017
NARRATIVE SHIFT: Byron York: Is tone of Trump-Russia probe changing?
Have you noticed? In recent public comments, the lawmakers investigating the Trump-Russia affair, along with some of the commentators who dissect its every development, seem to be focusing more on the facts of Russia’s attempts to interfere with the 2016 election and less on allegations that Donald Trump or his associates colluded with those efforts.
Some of that could be just an impression. But the fact is, the subjects that have dominated discussion of the Trump-Russia matter lately — Facebook and other social media ads and the most recent update from Senate Intelligence Committee leaders Richard Burr and Mark Warner — do not necessarily point toward collusion. Rather, more often than not, the latest talk points toward Russian “active measures,” that is, the effort to disrupt the 2016 campaign.
Why the change?
“Because that’s where the evidence is going,” one lawmaker who follows the matter closely told me in a text exchange. “I mean, things could always change, but that observation is just the reality of the situation right now, as I see it.”
“Because they’ve been spinning their wheels on something for which evidence has yet to emerge,” said another lawmaker.
“I think it’s 1) the Mueller probe means that stuff [allegations of collusion] is sort of in his wheelhouse now,” said yet another lawmaker, “and 2) I think there’s recognition that Trump himself is unlikely to be implicated in this.”
In a recent speech to the San Mateo County, California Republican Party, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes said that at this moment investigators have more evidence of Democrats colluding with Russians than of President Trump doing so.
Stay tuned.
GENERAL JACK D. RIPPER TRIED TO WARN US: “Western men’s sperm counts are falling, and we ought to be concerned.”
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Closing In On The Last Sacred Thing. “No one anticipated this all-powerful network could be potentially hijacked by actors like Putin or even spontaneously taken over by information storms such as toppled Harvey Weinstein. Franklin Foer, author of A World Without a Mind was one Cassandra and describes how Silicon Valley is only now belatedly realizing it may have created a Frankenstein monster.”
Nice work, guys.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. “Hollywood has a watchdog press, but it’s facing the wrong direction, protecting the powerful from the comparatively powerless. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the New York Times and The New Yorker reported most of the allegations against Weinstein; the specialty publications have a much more symbiotic relationship with the industry’s movers and shakers. They can’t adequately cover the industry without access, and their access dries up if they cross the wrong power player.”
Read the whole thing.
FORMER NPR CEO ON THE OTHER HALF OF AMERICA THAT THE LIBERAL MEDIA DOESN’T COVER.
Most reporters and editors are liberal — a now dated Pew Research Center poll found that liberals outnumber conservatives in the media by some 5 to 1, and that comports with my own anecdotal experience at National Public Radio. When you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink on what stories are important, what sources are legitimate and what the narrative of the day will be.
This may seem like an unusual admission from someone who once ran NPR, but it is borne of recent experience. Spurred by a fear that red and blue America were drifting irrevocably apart, I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike. . . .
At Urbana, I met dozens of people who were dedicating their lives to the mission, spreading the good news of Jesus, of course, but doing so through a life of charity and compassion for others: staffing remote hospitals, building homes for the homeless and, in one case, flying a “powered parachute” over miles of uninhabited jungle in the western Congo to bring a little bit of entertainment, education and relief to some of the remotest villages you could imagine. It was all inspiring — and a little foolhardy, if you ask me about the safety of a powered parachute — but it left me with a very different impression of a community that was previously known to me only through Jerry Falwell and the movie “Footloose.”
Well, good. But if journalism were more diverse, you wouldn’t need a Junior Year Abroad to experience this culture.
I HAD MISSED THIS: Apple gave Uber’s app ‘unprecedented’ access to sensitive Apple features that can record iPhone screens. “Uber’s iPhone app has a secret back door to powerful Apple features, allowing the ride-hailing service to potentially record a user’s screen and access other personal information without their knowledge. This access to special iPhone functions — which are so powerful that Apple almost always keeps them off-limits to outside companies — is not disclosed in any consumer-facing information included with Uber’s app.”
WENT TO HEAR LOCAL CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE TIM BURCHETT SPEAK, and was very impressed when he talked about thorium nuclear power and clean energy, especially since Oak Ridge National Lab is in a different district.
NICE TO SEE SUCH A SENSIBLE PIECE ON THE PBS SITE, OF ALL PLACES: Why your alarmism over Trump is dangerous for democracy.
Even when we can’t quite summon the energy, we’re expected to be outraged. Our outrage is then presented as a badge of honor, evidence of virtue at a time of historic challenge to the Republic. But the nature of the outrage – overwrought before even Trump took office – has taken a new turn.
We are confronted daily not simply with outrage, but a kind of end-of-worldism: America is on the brink of dictatorship; Trump is going start World War III; the president’s access to the nuclear codes might actually destroy the universe; if he manages to control his impulses, then his withdrawal from the Paris climate change accords will still destroy the universe, just a bit more slowly. . . .
The argument amounts to something more simple and sinister: that presidents who express ideologies that we find outside the bounds of acceptability can be removed, despite being democratically elected by voters. Posner is also quite explicit that he is talking about political, not mental, incompetence. The entirely subjective criteria, which could easily be applied to any president going forward, include: “[His] values fall outside the mainstream… he lacks the interest or attention span to inform himself about issues; or he lacks management abilities and is unable to govern effectively.” Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen makes a similarly ideological argument for impeachment that bears no relation to anything the constitution says: “If the president can’t recognize the difference between these domestic terrorists and the people who oppose their anti-American attitudes, then he cannot defend us.”
Ironically, the arguments made by the likes of Posner and Cohen represent a greater long-term threat to American democracy than anything Trump has done so far.
Indeed.
IT’S LIKE THEY CARE MORE ABOUT THEIR OWN MONEY THAN YOURS: The Finger-Pointing at the Finance Firm TIAA.
TIME TO UPDATE THE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY AGAIN, AIRSTRIP ONE: “The government has said the term ‘pregnant woman’ should not be used in a UN treaty because it ‘excludes’ transgender people…Yet in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office submission, Britain opposes the term ‘pregnant woman’ because it may ‘exclude transgender people who have given birth’. The suggested term is ‘pregnant people.’”
Good to know, and thanks. But personally, I’m fine with the old phrase.
AT AMAZON, Dash Rapid Egg Cooker, Black.
CAMILLE PAGLIA: The Dumbing Down of America Began in Public Schools. “I’ve been teaching now for 46 years as a classroom teacher, and I have felt the slow devolution of the quality of public school education in the classroom.”
WELL, YES: The Disconnect Between Liberal Aspirations And Liberal Housing Policy Is Killing Coastal U.S. Cities. “By doing essentially nothing but letting things happen, conservative America is kicking our ass at providing opportunities for low income and working classes to build wealth and get ahead. Cities like Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta have managed to stay affordable by simply allowing housing to continue to be built as their populations grow, and the result is that people keep moving there.”
THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Dangerous, Filthy Homeless Encampments Force Closure of Hawaii Public Park Indefinitely.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 25 Not Salon-Approved Conservatives Worth Following on Twitter.
SMARTPHONES: “Weapons of Mass Manipulation?”
WHY IS SILICON VALLEY RUINING AMERICA FOR PROFIT? How Silicon Valley Divided Society and Made Everyone Raging Mad.
Oh, right, I guess it’s the for-profit part.
THE SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED: Body Odor and Sexual Attraction: How A Woman’s Scent Attracts Men. But there’s this: “Until then, here is what we do know about what men want. ‘Men are clearly attracted by cues of youth, health, body shapes associated with health, etc.,’ says Roney, ‘all of which supports attraction based on mating potential.'” Glad they’ve figured that out.
BEING ASPLENIC, I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS: New pneumonia vaccine protects against dozens of additional forms.