THE NEW CIVILITY: Over 200 protesters arrested during Kavanaugh hearings.
Plus: And the Women’s March is footing the bill.
That’s Linda Sarsour’s group, FYI.
Flashback: Senate approved Antonin Scalia 98-0.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
September 7, 2018
STEPHEN KRUISER: Do the Democrats Have Their Own Tea Party Movement?
Yes, in the sense that a bunch of well-informed, grassroots Republicans and independents politely insisted that taxes and spending were both too high, and the new Democrat upstarts are and want none of that.
CHANGE: More users than ever are deleting the Facebook app & taking lengthy breaks, new survey shows.
I came to loathe the Facebook app, which is a far thicker and taller silo than AOL ever was — and a lot creepier, too.
WINNING: August Job Creation Rebounds — “Fueled By Tax Cuts,” Notes AP, Bloomberg.
Jobs, that is, for the lucky few who weren’t literally murdered to death by the tax cuts and/or ending net neutrality.
Plus: 6.3%: African-American Unemployment Rate Second-Lowest Ever.
Worst. Racist. Ever.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Deep State Op-Ed, KavaNOPE and Much Much More.
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT? ‘Frozen’ Actor Snatches Trump Flag From Audience Member During Curtain Call.
That hardly seems the time or place for any of that.
COLD WAR II: What Russia’s Vostok-18 Exercise with China Means. “Moscow knows what it is doing and Washington should take note.”
Other than the vast scale of the exercise, the fact that Chinese forces have a role seems to have dominated reporting on Vostok-18. But, at least two critical analytical points seem to have been missed. First, the location of the exercise no doubt reflects the Kremlin’s desire to cool down tensions in the European theater. At a time of emerging fissures within the Trans-Atlantic Community, such an enormous exercise close to NATO countries would be excessively provocative and counter to Russia’s interests. That the Kremlin understands this is no doubt a good thing for European security. The other important point that has not registered in most Western analyses is the confluence of the September Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok and the Vostok-18 exercise. It’s easy to forget that six months ago, it looked more than a little likely that a massive war would engulf Northeast Asia. The exercise was most likely put together as a show of force meant to favorably impact diplomacy and the related “correlation of forces” in and around the Korean Peninsula.
Undoubtedly, it is also true that Russia-China strategic cooperation has reached a new stage.
But: “As good as this sounds, it is fair to say that not all Russians are so optimistic, and some have even suggested that Vostok-18 has a double message that is also meant t o warn Beijing. I have recently described in this forum at least one prolific Russian strategist who considers China as the preeminent threat to Russian national security.”
This is the second deep-think article I came across this week on Vostok-18. The other, from Stephen Blank for MSN, was more ominous: “Russia is rehearsing for a global war, and giving early warning to the West.”
Given that Putin is an opportunist who plays his opponents rather than his country’s weak hand, I’d guess that his grand plan, such as it is, is to keep Russia’s options open.
IT’S COMPLICATED: ‘Still an illegal substance,’ marijuana’s federal ban complicates things for cities, towns, vendors.
It’s my understanding that the FDA itself has the authority to move marijuana off the Schedule 1 list of “drugs with high risk and no counterbalancing benefit.” Unlikely as that is, perhaps Congress should act and return the issue to the states where it more properly belongs.
ELI LAKE: For John Kerry, Every Brag Is Humble.
John Kerry has many passions. He loves the Boston Red Sox. He adores his wife, Teresa. He relishes diplomacy and bicycling. What John Kerry is most fond of, though, is John Kerry.
This is what stands out in his new memoir, “Every Day is Extra.” It’s Kerry’s mastery of faux-modesty. He writes like the guy who apologizes for his worn-out running shoes because, try as he might, he just can’t give up his cherished marathons.
Ouch.
Stephen Kruiser’s take was shorter and sharper: “Or ‘Every Wife is Richer’.”
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: Wait Until You See How Many Google Employees Donated to Democrats.
September 6, 2018
RIP: Burt Reynolds has died at the age of 82 following a heart attack.
So many enjoyable movies, but it isn’t difficult to pick a favorite. And the best part of Smokey and the Bandit is that it expressed Americanness joyously and unapologetically, and Burt’s charming insouciance was a big part of that.
WOW: The world’s fastest SUV will be a 200 mph Lister.
A specialist British sports car company is to turn the Jaguar F-Pace into a 670 horsepower, 200 mph 4×4 that it says will be the fastest SUV in the world.
The Lister Motor Company’s Lister LFP will do 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds and will cost around £140,000.
The performance “beats the performance of recently-launched SUVs from other well-known car brands with monster killer performance” and is “faster than most supercars, never mind SUVs”.
The Grand Cherokee Trackhawk with a supercharged Hemi and a sub-12-second quarter mile seems almost reasonable at $88,000 or so.
You probably wouldn’t want to take either one off-road, however.
TO BE FAIR, BOOKER IS EMINENTLY MOCKABLE: Twitter is having fun mocking Cory Booker’s “Spartacus” moment.
GOOD QUESTION: What Comes After INF?
Should the United States withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty? Colin Gray and Matthew Costlow argue that the time has come for Washington to walk away from the Treaty because it no longer serves to promote American national security.[1] Their arguments about the growing weakness of the current INF regime are sound and command respect.
In their analysis, however, they give insufficient attention to the tangible security benefits that the current INF regime confers on the United States, including its stabilizing effect on U.S.-Russian relations, as well as its important role in promoting enduring American advantages in naval and aerial strike capabilities against the missile challenges of Eurasian land powers like Russia. In minimizing the role that the INF Treaty plays in promoting American military advantages, they fail to provide a roadmap for what the United States ought to do after withdrawing from the Treaty. The logic behind the INF Treaty is sound, even if the current Treaty needs revision. To paraphrase Voltaire, if an INF Treaty didn’t exist, the United States would have to invent one. The time may be approaching to abandon the existing INF framework, but American leaders would do well to recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of that framework and plan their departure to maximize the chances of returning to a more secure, robust INF Treaty in the near future.
The problem isn’t that the INF is a bad deal. The problem is that Moscow has spent years violating it flagrantly and with impunity.
ACCESSIBILITY: Xbox Adaptive Controller is now out — and we go hand, foot, fingers, and elbows-on.
Microsoft’s newest game accessory, the Xbox Adaptive Controller, probably isn’t for you. That’s just an odds game, when counting the percentage of people who fall into the “limited mobility” camp that this strange, unique controller is aimed at.
But that’s the incredible thing about the XAC: that it’s targeting a particularly fractured audience. Limited mobility is a giant, vague category, after all, with so many physical ailments to account for (let alone psychological ones). And previous answers in the gaming sphere have typically been specialized, one-of-a-kind controllers for single hands, feet, heads, and more.
XAC wins out in an odd way: by leaving some major work in users’ hands. This $99 lap-sized device is truly incomplete on its own, as it’s designed from the ground up to require add-on joysticks, buttons, and more.
Kudos to Microsoft for addressing a small market with big needs, and doing so in what looks like an intelligent way.
SCRAPPLEFCE: Op-Ed Blowback: Trump Behavior Shames Economy.
IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH CERTAIN LEFTISTS WILL ADOPT ANY OLD ANTI-AMERICAN CAUSE: Former Anti-Nuclear Peace Activist Sentenced For Plotting ISIS-Inspired Attacks.
MICHAEL LEDEEN: Anonymous Speaks. “It isn’t treasonous or cowardly, it’s about ambition. You cannot imagine it until you see it unfold. When I worked for then-Secretary of State Haig, I was in a staff meeting one morning where Haig gave an explicit order to an assistant secretary, who of course responded, ‘Yes, sir.’ Whereupon, within hours, he did the opposite. And kept his job! Really.”
Read the whole thing.
IN WASHINGTON THEY CAN’T EVEN BACKSTAB EFFECTIVELY ANYMORE: Trump Sabateur Op-Ed Backfires: LA Times Calls “A Coward”; Greenwald: “Unelected Cabal.”
GENERIC VOTE: YouGov: Dem +5 | Selzer: Dem+2 | ABC/WP: Dem +14.
That’s quite the spread.
HOME ON THE FRONT RANGE: Local sports store boycotts Nike after Kaepernick ad, sells all Nike gear at 50%.
Stephen Martin has owned Prime Time Sports for 21 years but this is the year he’s going to stop selling Nike gear.
“It’s probably 40-50% of the store,” Martin said, shrugging. “They are the exclusive dealer of the NFL jerseys, it’s all Nike.”
Owner Martin said NFL jersey sales are a huge part of his business. He said he will miss the sales but this is a sacrifice he’s willing to make.
“The thing that fired me up the most, that got me motivated to put the sign up and the sale was the last two words of their add, ‘sacrificed everything,’” Martin explained.
“He doesn’t know sacrifice, not in my opinion.”
Related: Nike’s Reputation Takes A Hit Overall and Across Key Demographics.