SEE, YOU, NOT WASHINGTON, ARE THE PROBLEM: This from Politico earlier today: “We have grown so far apart from each other,” said former Trump administration staffer (and no longer “Anonymous”) Miles Taylor. “I mean, Washington, D.C., is not broken — the American people are broken.”
Author Archive: Mark Tapscott
November 5, 2020
November 4, 2020
TIME TO MAN UP, AMERICANS: What Sarah said at 3:20 am, especially her last five lines.
November 3, 2020
IS ‘THREE-HOUR MEDIA’ THE NEW LONG-FORM JOURNALISM? If you haven’t heard about the “New Contra” media, you will be because it may well do what many of us grizzled veterans of the early days of blogs thought the blogosphere would do.
And, while this piece in The Federalist feels very 1998-2001-ish, check out this graph:
“Three-hour media? What a ludicrous concept. Who would listen to three hours of anything, especially if it’s just two people sitting at a table — a comedian actor and fighting commentator on one side and an eclectic guest on the other? But people do, because they have more capacity for discussion than legacy media think they do.”
EXPECT EARLY BIDEN ‘ACCEPTANCE’ SPEECH: Democrats in the Biden campaign and the media have been saying for months that President Donald Trump better not “under any circumstances” declare victory Tuesday evening.
But Axios reports Biden aides saying he will deliver a speech tonight accepting victory if the media declares him the winner and that he will immediately began making president-elect decisions.
HERE COMES THE FATAL THEFT OF PENNSYLVANIA: Issues & Insights says be prepared to see robbery of the Keystone State’s 20 electoral votes to give victory to Biden sometime later this week after a knife-fight set up by the highly partisan Pennsylvania State Supreme Court’s Democratic majority.
CHURCH SUES CITY OFFICIAL LURKING IN THE BUSHES, GOOGLE CENSORS ITS LAW FIRM? World Aflame Church in La Habra Heights, California, went to federal court this week seeking relief from harassment and unjustified fines imposed by the municipality’s City Manager.
It also appears this morning that one of the law firms representing the congregation, Tyler & Bursch LLP, is being censored by Google on its search engine. The firm is headed by Robert Tyler and is linked to Advocates for Faith & Freedom. So Big Tech is not only censoring viewpoints with which it disagrees, but also barring consumers access to service providers
UPDATE: A couple of readers report they have no problem searching for Tyler & Bursch LLP on Google. I have repeated my search multiple times since posting this earlier this morning and still getting the same result. Am trying to reach a Google spokesman for a comment/explanation.
UPDATE II: DuckDuckGo takes me right to Tyler & Bursch’s web site, unlike Google. DDG is now my default search engine.
TYPICAL AMERICAN CAMPUS IS A LOST CAUSE: Suffocating leftism dominates, even in places like Western Illinois University where students and employees blocked Students for Trump from registering new voters.
November 2, 2020
READY TO PUNCH A ‘NAZI’ IN THE FACE: The Federalist’ Tristan Justice attended ShutdownDC’s online training sessions for tomorrow night:
“Following the trainings, I also now fully understand that ‘law enforcement is inherently violent,’ and ‘the only way to avoid getting harmed by law enforcement is to not be out protesting.’ Even if that means I’m in the middle of burning down a black-owned business in the name of social justice, because we must ‘acknowledge we live on stolen land,'” Justice writes.
DON’T THINK THEY’D DO THIS FOR JAILED PROUD BOYS: Temple University College Democrats and allied Left-wing radical groups provided bail assistance to rioters arrested during last week’s Philadelphia riots.
As one wag observed: Who knew stealing a 60-inch flat screen TV from a Walmart erases everything bad since 1619? And as for me, I wouldn’t help bail any of them from either side out of jail.
MIGHT WANT TO AVOID DOWNTOWN DC THIS WEEK: Leftist thugs with ShutdownDC are open about their plans and one hopes that, win or lose Tuesday, Trump, who will still be chief executive, will respond with uncompromising force.
October 31, 2020
NICK OWENS, RIP: Matt Mackowiak’s tribute is truly touching. And a useful insight into Washington’s 20-30 Something culture that is hardly different today from when I arrived in 1976.
NEW STUDY FINDS GENDER WAGE GAP DISAPPEARING: Likely not quickly enough to satisfy the feminazis or the MSM, but disappearing nevertheless, according to Kay Hymowitz, writing for the Institute for Family Studies.
LOCKDOWN PUTS US BACK TO DISEASE CASTES: Jeffrey Tucker of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) describes how caste systems functioned to insulate the elite from direct exposure to pandemics. Elites can work from home, most of the rest of us have to leave our houses with some frequency. See where this is going?
October 30, 2020
PANIC A LIBERAL, SHOW THEM THIS VIDEO OF MINORITY KIDS FOR TRUMP: From Campus Reform. Might want to have an ER on hand, though.
JOHN PIPER IS A FAMOUS THEOLOGIAN, KYLEE ZEMPEL IS NOT: Piper made a lot of disruptive waves in conservative and evangelical circles last week with his essay entitled “Policies, Persons and Paths to Ruin.” Essentially, Piper is mystified by Christians who vote for Trump despite his abundant and obvious character flaws.
Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist where her official bio says nothing about her holding any theological degrees. Be that as it may, Zempel takes Piper’s arguments apart and leaves them in a scattered pile on the floor. Her basic critique is seen in these two graphs:
“Piper’s framing is at best problematic and at worst intellectually dishonest, for he doesn’t make an appropriate comparison. Piper doesn’t juxtapose Trump’s character with Biden’s character or Trump’s policies with Biden’s policies. Instead, he compares Trump’s immoral character with Biden’s immoral policies.
“It’s here that he finds himself ‘baffled’ that Christians don’t take Trump’s character seriously. Many Christians, however, refuse to equate these two unequal realms. Character should be weighed against character, and policy against policy. Piper’s value judgment comes at the disposal of Trump’s policy victories, many of which are advantageous to those pursuing godliness, and at the oversight of Biden’s demonstrably depraved character.”
If the brutal clarity of this piece is indicative of what to expect from Zempel in the future, we should all take note and look forward to her future work.
TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK TO RIOTERS: When they threw flammable chemicals on his Philadelphia church’s roof and set it ablaze, Vietnamese Baptist Church Pastor Philip Pham said he had no idea why they did so. His church, after all, has been a valuable community resource for years.
In the aftermath, Pham claimed a miracle involving a computer hard-drive that wasn’t destroyed in the flames, and he counseled his congregants “to love and pray for” those who committed the senseless violence against them. I know it would be exceedingly tough for me to have such a forgiving spirit. How about you? Of course, forgiveness does not preclude the administration of justice to wrong-doers, either.
IF SOLAR ENERGY IS SO CLEAN, WHY IS IT SO DIRTY? Do you know about the incredible environmental clean-up problem being created by those thousands upon thousands of solar panels being installed across America? Don’t expect to hear about it from Joe Biden.
TRUMP DOES A LITTLE OLD-FASHIONED MEDIA CAMPAIGNING: Via an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS). For puzzled younger readers, the MJS is one of the few surviving newspapers that still sells a print edition made of paper that people pick up from their driveways or front yards each morning, hold in their hands, and read it by successively “turning pages.”
Yes, I held one in my hands as a child, reading it while trudging the five miles to school in the snow, uphill, both ways. No, it didn’t even have a search button.
October 29, 2020
FIVE COVID CHARTS THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE: Issues & Insights assembled these data illustrations that ought to remove any doubt that 99 percent of the “reporting” on the coronavirus Pandemic gets all the important stuff wrong. Note especially the near-vertical climbs in new cases for France and Switzerland.
‘ONLY AN ACT OF GOD COULD KEEP ME FROM VOTING FOR TRUMP:” So declares self-described “Children’s Rights Activist” Katy Faust. She didn’t vote for The Donald in 2016.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH ANONYMOUS SOURCING? The Federalist’ Mollie Hemingway says all you need to know on this issue is captured in the New York Times’ handling of its “Anonymous” source, you know, the “senior administration official” who was actually just a staff guy out in the bureaucracy.
October 28, 2020
WHAT IF THEY START OUTLAWING CONSERVATIVE SPEECH? They will, you know, if Biden wins and Democrats takeover both chambers of Congress, according to Hans Bader of Liberty Unyielding.
WHO ON BIDEN’S STAFF CORRECTS HIS GAFFES? Another illustration of why the Issues & Insights editorial page is so appealing. “Biden’s staff, which includes much of the media, must by now be weary of having to cover his repeated stumbles and descents into a momentary, but growing, madness. In only the last year, Biden:” Go here for the lengthy list.
MAINE SENATE NOW A DEAD-HEAT: Latest results from Colby College Poll has Democrat Gideon with a three-point margin over Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), well within the margin of error. Think Collins wishes now that Trump would have a rally in Maine?
CUOMO SHAKES DOWN STATE CONTRACTORS: Open the Books strikes again, this time finding hundreds of instances where New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo sought millions of dollars campaign contractors from firms providing goods and services to state government. You wanna play in New York? You gotta pay, know what I mean?
Question: Why doesn’t somebody endow an annual Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant Award to recognize the superb work of Open the Books, Judicial Watch and other transparency in government advocates?