NICK GILLESPIE INTERVIEWS JOHN CLEESE: New video from Reason TV on “John Cleese’s War on Wokeism.”
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
August 2, 2022
RON DESANTIS’ CAMPAIGN RESPONDS TO THE VIEW’S GRACIOUS INVITE WITH A GRACIOUS MIC DROP:
Related: From a well-caffeinated Kurt Schlichter: Media Hacks Pout As Republicans Treat Them Like the Trash They Are.
THE FINAL ACT: Joe Manchin’s thirty pieces of (inflated) silver.
And the coda: GOP to Manchin: Payback’s coming in 2024, pal.
August 1, 2022
HOUSE REPUBLICANS FOLLOWING RON DESANTIS’ LEAD ON CRT:
House Republicans are following Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ lead in trying to keep Critical Race Theory from spreading.
As the Daily Caller reported, North Carolina GOP Rep. Dan Bishop introduced a resolution on Friday that labels CRT a Marxist ideology that poses a threat to the country.
Bishop’s resolution notes that CRT class “into question the founding and moral legitimacy of the United States, both here and throughout the world.” In doing that, CRT asserts that whites created “whiteness” as a “special kind of property” that exists “in order to grant themselves power and privilege while excluding other racial groups from ‘whiteness’ and its putative benefit.”
Moreover, according to Bishop’s measure, CRT claims America is built on a “racial hierarchy” that foments “racial-class antagonism” by arguing that our nation is driven by ‘‘structural racism’’ and ‘‘systemic racism.” It even filters down to the youngest Americans by teaching “children that they are either oppressors or oppressed based solely on the color of their skin.”
In this sense, Bishop argues, CRT’s structural dialectic” makes it “analogous to Karl Marx’s doctrines of structural classism, material determinism, and dialectical materialism.”
CRT also aligns with Marxist criticism of capitalism in that it teaches that racism is not just part of the founding narrative or embedded in America’s structure, it is also the ‘‘ordinary state of affairs,’’ which then frames the United States “as an intrinsically unjust, oppressive, and racist nation.”
“In its own words,” Bishop’s resolution notes, CRT denounces “equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and the neutral principles of constitutional law,’’ as well as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the “American founding ideals of inalienable rights secured by a government, and the social fabric of the American Republic.”
And much like Marx wanted to “abolish bourgeois private property” to end capitalism, the resolution says, CRT maintains “that the only solution to this state of affairs is to ‘abolish whiteness’” and thus fundamentally change America from the ground up.
Deep State aficionado Bill Kristol responded thusly:
I’m so old, I can remember when Kristol edited a conservative magazine that published its own numerous critiques of CRT.
JUST NBC THE RACISM! MSNBC Guest Calls Herschel Walker A ‘Negro’ Who Will ‘Do What He’s Told’ By Republicans.
The Nation’s Elie Mystal joined MSNBC to spew disgraceful comments about Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker. Mystal has made a habit of making a fool of himself on national television, but his comments on ‘The Cross Connection With Tiffany Cross’ crossed the line, even for him.
Mystal can’t fathom the fact that a recent poll claims that Walker is only a few percentage points behind Democrat and current Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock in the upcoming race.
After bashing all Republicans, Mystal called Walker a “negro” who “clearly doesn’t have independent thoughts.” He went on to say that Walker simply does what he’s told by Republicans, which is why Republicans are backing him at all.
“It’s going to be a close election in Georgia because Walker has the backing of the Republicans,” Mystal said. “You ask why are Republicans backing this man who’s so clearly unintelligent, who so clearly doesn’t have independent thoughts, but that’s actually the reason. Walker is going do what he’s told, and that is what Republicans like.”
“That’s what Republicans want from their Negroes: to do what they were told. And Walker presents exactly as a person who lacks independent thoughts, lacks an independent agenda, lacks an independent ability to grasp policies, and he’s just going to go in there and vote like Mitch McConnell tells them to vote.”
Walker responded to Mystal in a video embedded in a tweet:
“A lot of people are asking me to say something about the man on MSNBC that called me the N-word. Here’s what I got to say about that: shame on MSNBC and shame on him,” Walker begins.
“I’m gonna pray for both of them because they need Jesus. When I saw what he said, it reminded me of the differences between myself and my opponent, Senator Warnock. In the left-wing crazy that believe America is fundamentally a bad country full of racist people. They want to divide us, turn us against each other. We have our problems, but we can solve them together. This is a good country full of good people.”
With some exceptions in the green rooms of CNN and MSNBC.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): LOL, Elie Mystal.
UPDATE: Like his former boss, all of Joe Biden’s promises come with an expiration date:
(Updated and bumped.)
I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER ACTUALLY WATCHING MUSIC VIDEOS ON MTV: MTV: From Cultural Juggernaut to … Whatever It Is Now.
MTV officially went live at midnight on August 1, 1981, with the video for the Buggles’s “Video Killed the Radio Star” and an edited clip of Neil Armstrong’s moon walk planting the MTV flag. The designer of the clip, which was initially played every hour on the channel, chose the moon landing footage because it was one of the “most famous television scene ever,” but more importantly, it was free. His first idea was the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, so let’s all give thanks for the public domain.
Flashback: Them’s Fightin’ Words: ‘Music in the ’80s Sucked.’
NEW NFL SEASON KICKING OFF SWIMMINGLY: NFL suspends Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson six games after sexual assault accusations: reports. Watson faced 24 civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault.
UNDERSTANDING WOKE TACTICS PT. 7: CALL-OUTS.
There is one other element of the call-out which we must say something about, and that is the artificiality of it. What the woke do is attempt to hijack the mechanisms of social rejection and social disapproval that we use to enforce moral and social norms, and use them in the service of enforcing wokeness. They will often co-ordinate attack on people by calling them out and socially swarming them in a way which looks organic. It is an attempt to make artificially created and pre-planned call-outs and swarms look like authentic, spontaneous, organic social disapproval. They are weaponizing social rejection as a way to shut people up. It’s mean, cruel, and unkind.
The way to deal with a tactic like this is to simple but we need to understand that call-outs thrive on the drama of the call-out. That is, a call-out generates a whole lot of publicity and interest as people wait to se how someone reacts. If you simply refuse to react to a call-out sooner or later the digital crowd which has gathered will lose interest. Remember, call-outs are almost always relying on artificial attention. There are certain accounts which have cultivated an audience that has as it’s goal to swarm, pile on, and drag people. They turn their accounts into a sort of evil call-out “bat-signal” that alerts their followers that now is the time to swarm, pile on, and brigade someone. This is not organic. Most regular people do not walk around looking for people to pile-on and swarm, and most people do not respond well to “hey, let’s pile on this random Wal-Mart worker.”
Now that we understand this, we can see that the solution to a call-out is to simply be as non-responsive as possible. In a social media setting the way to deal with it is to simply ignore it until the crowd that has gathered for the call-out drama has dispersed. The people who gather around for drama will leave just as soon as there is other drama to attend to, and there is always some drama somewhere for them to attend to. Once you realize that the pressure is artificially induced as a method of trying to make you shut up it is a lot easier to just ignore it until it goes away.
If you are in a real setting where someone is trying to call you out at work in some public way, the simple answer is:
“if you want to discuss this in private that’s fine, but I refuse to allow you to try to put me on the spot and then pepper me with questions and accusations under the bright light of social pressure so you can rake me over the coals. If you want to have a real conversation then we will set something up, if not then I consider the matter closed.”
The thing you must remember in a real life situation is that under no circumstances will you answer any questions in public. If they want to schedule a meeting fine, if not then let it die. There might be some drama or tension for a while, but not nearly as much as there would be if you indulged them and answered their questions. After all, no answer you give will ever be good enough, so it is best to highlight the fact that the person who is calling you out is weaponizing social pressure and then refuse to engage. If they want to take a matter to HR then you can deal with the matter there, but under zero circumstances will you be handling the matter in public.
Read the whole thing.
REPUBLICAN WHO IMPEACHED TRUMP LEARNS A HARD LESSON ABOUT HIS NEW FRIENDS:
For me, the problem here isn’t that [Peter] Meijer impeached Trump. If he really felt that was the right move, I’d disagree with him, but he was within his capacity as a House member to do so, and it’s possible for someone to be principled and wrong at the same time. What’s laughable, though, is how naive Meijer was in believing that such a move would insulate him.
His op-ed is just one long performance of political flailing as he desperately tries to signal his virtue to Democrats who are trying to defeat him. “I am the only freshman in history to impeach a president of his own party” he proclaims, making me wonder if he would like a cookie. To put it simply, if you are going to impeach the president of your own party based on no evidence whatsoever, at least have enough self-respect to stop groveling before your new friends after they betray you.
So you would think that the Democrats would look at [former Trump official] John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they most fear. That as patriots they would use every tool at their disposal to defeat him and similar candidates that they’ve said are an existential threat.
Instead they are funding Gibbs.
No, I wouldn’t think that. Why would anyone think that? Is Meijer aware of the history of the Democrat Party? My gosh, dude, don’t just openly admit you have zero political acumen. They are boosting your opponent because they do not care about you. They never cared about you. You were a useful idiot to put a “bipartisan” stamp on their ill-fated impeachment. The moment you outlived your usefulness, they were always going to throw you overboard.
THE ONION: China Threatens To Retaliate For Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip By Letting Her Return Safely.
Related: Live look at Pelosi in mid-flight:
I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a ‘portal to hell.’
In April, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, restarted their particle accelerator – the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator – after a three-year hiatus.
The accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, had undergone repairs and upgrades, and scientists plan to use it to crash protons together and learn more about the origins of the universe.
Nevertheless, social media users are suggesting that the machine has a different purpose. A Facebook post shared July 5 shows a TikTok video of a woman who claims that CERN scientists are using the machine to open a doorway for demons.
“If y’all don’t know about cern it’s a demonic/Evil machine that opens up portals to other dimensions/Hell/other spiritual worlds(not Heaven/or bosom of Abraham)and it brings in demons wicked spirits/High Evil Principalities,” reads the caption of the post.
Similar posts have amassed hundreds of interactions on Facebook and Twitter.
But the claim is baseless.
There is no evidence scientists at CERN are engaged in anything other than scientific-related activities. Physics experts told USA TODAY scientists use the Large Hadron Collider to collide particles at very high energies to study matter.
To be fair, if there’s one thing you’d think we could do in 2022, it’s opening up (well, even more so), a portal to Hell, but it is Europe, after all. If the Biden administration were in charge, it wouldn’t be a question of if they could do it — it would be a question of what’s the deepest circle they would reach?
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): In the Biden era, Hell is probably more worried about a portal from Earth.
GREAT MOMENTS IN OIKOPHOBIA: Watch: Dem. Congresswoman Has ‘Meltdown’ in Florida Diner After Seeing Opponent’s Campaign Poster.
July 31, 2022
GREAT MOMENTS IN TIMING: Biden Pushes Massive Tax Hike on Workers as Recession Begins.
The best way to revive an economy as you head into a recession is to slap businesses and workers with a massive tax hike. Said no legitimate economist ever.
Yet that’s apparently the best plan President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress can come up with. Their new so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” which would do almost nothing to reduce inflation, also includes a $315 billion tax on businesses. This comes in the form of a 15% “minimum corporate tax” applied to major U.S. corporations.
Biden says that this tax will allow him to spend huge sums on green energy subsidies and tax credits and “pay for all of this by requiring big corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, with no tax increases at all for families making under $400,000 a year.”
Yeah, right.
While this may be literally true in the sense that Biden will levy the tax on corporations, in reality, it will burden everyday people the most. Most economists agree that much of the true burden of corporate taxes is borne by workers through lower wages. There’s some dispute about exactly what percentage is ultimately absorbed by workers, but even the most favorable, left-leaning analyses acknowledge that it’s a significant chunk. Meanwhile, most research says it’s the majority!
Or as America’s Newspaper of Record notes: Democrats To Try Bold Strategy Of Doing Exactly What Got Us Into This Mess In The First Place.
UDPATE (FROM GLENN): Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
TIM GRAHAM: Politico Scolds ‘Pouty Republicans Who Stiff Reporters,’ They’re ‘Making a Big Mistake.’
Politico senior media writer Jack Shafer typed an article titled “Unsolicited Advice for the Pouty Republicans Who Stiff Reporters: 2024 GOP contenders are making a big mistake by only talking to themselves.” The problem here is you don’t have to be “pouty” to make a decision to restrict media access. And not all “reporters” are liberal (so-called “mainstream”) reporters. That’s an insult to conservative reporters.
Shafer, like others, is referring to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Republican Party restricting media access to their “Sunshine Summit.” At least Shafer refers to Barack Obama, who “saw the good politics in freezing the press out.” Joe Biden greatly restricted media access in his 2020 “basement” campaign. Was that “pouty”?
I can’t imagine why Republicans would want to stiff Democratic Party operatives with bylines, after this November 2nd, 2020 admission from Tim Alberta, Politico Magazine’s chief political correspondent, that “most of us are suffering from this collective PTSD from 2016.”
FIERY, BUT MOSTLY AWARD-WINNING: CNN Journo Who Reported ‘Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests’ Gets Emmy Nomination.
