Author Archive: Stephen Green
May 10, 2018
CUE THE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN: ‘People don’t feel sorry for us’: Huma Abedin opens up about special bond with Georgina Chapman over public humiliations and a lack of sympathy from people who think they are ‘rich, thin and beautiful.’
Huma Abedin isn’t unsympathetic because she’s “rich, thin, and beautiful,” but because she’s served as the Chief Enabler for one of the most corrupt politicians of our time, and also for her teen-stalking creep of a husband.
And statements from her like this one aren’t making her any less unsympathetic.
POSTMODERN NANNYSTATISM: The City of Austin imposes a 10pm bedtime on homesharing guests.
Home-sharing—renting a room or an entire home from a homeowner, often through an online platform like Airbnb and HomeAway—offers travelers a cost-effective and customizable alternative to traditional hotels. It helps homeowners pay their mortgages and other bills. And it gives entrepreneurs an incentive to buy dilapidated houses and restore them. But most importantly, home-sharing is an important way for property owners to exercise their basic right to choose whether to let someone stay in their home—a right the United States Supreme Court has called “one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property.” That’s why protecting responsible homeowners’ right to rent their homes is one of the Goldwater Institute’s top national property rights priorities.
Unfortunately, the city of Austin has not welcomed this economic opportunity or respected the rights of property owners, but rather joined a growing number of cities that have imposed draconian rules that deprive homeowners of some of their most basic constitutional rights.
Austin’s regulations restrict the number and activity of guests of short-term (but not long-term) rentals, subject home-sharers to warrantless searches, and completely ban homeowners from offering their home as a short-term rental if the home isn’t their primary residence.
Let’s call this what it is: Punitive rent-seeking by the hotel industry.
MICHAEL WALSH: For Trump, the End of the Beginning.
The president and his new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, were undoubtedly emboldened to flout the conventional wisdom of Foggy Bottom and its amen chorus in the press corps by their success (caveat: so far) in handling North Korea. Just a few months ago, the usual worrywarts and chin-pullers were fretting that the madman in Washington was about to provoke the only slightly less mad Kim Jong-un into a nuclear exchange in the international equivalent of a dick-measuring contest. Meanwhile, the same Wise Men were thrilled with the “success” of their beloved Obama’s giveaways to the mullahs in Tehran.
And then, suddenly, there was Li’l Kim in South Korea; after nearly 70 years of a state of war between the two Koreas, talk of peace—if not actual reunification—is in the air…
So the end of the Iran deal will have ramifications and repercussions far beyond this nation’s dealings with Iran itself. Certainly, the excitable Iranians must now understand their bluff has been called, there will be no further rollovers from Uncle Sam, and that their long-accruing butcher’s bill, outstanding since 1979, is now due and payable. The Iranian regime is on shaky ground, its youthful population restive, and it might well have fallen during the Obama Administration had we supported the Green Revolution with just the slightest gesture. The abrogation of the “deal” will now doom them, irrevocably.
The past two weeks might eventually go down as the most consequential in American diplomacy since Ronald Reagan’s “failed” 1986 Reykjavik summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, which more than any other single event set the stage for peaceful victory in the Cold War.
And do read the whole thing.
NEW AGE EMERGENCY SERVICES: Wisc. Ambulance Service Replaces Opioids With … Essential Oils.
These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years — we just live in them.
I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM — AND I GOT ONE: Israel strikes ‘nearly all’ Iranian infrastructure in Syria after Iran rocket attack, minister says.
The Israeli Defense Force said it deployed fighter jets and used missiles to strike a range of targets, including military compounds, intelligence operations and munitions warehouses, a statement read. The strikes were Israel’s largest air operation in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
“The IDF will not allow the Iranian threat to establish itself in Syria. The Syrian regime will be held accountable for everything happening in its territory,” the press release read. “The IDF is prepared for a wide variety of scenarios.”
The missile launcher responsible for the Iranian rocket strikes was also destroyed, according to the release.
Israeli casualties: Zero.
Nice work, IDF.
BLUE WAVE? Dem Advantage on Generic Ballot Down to 1.4%.
Historically, Democrats have needed about a five-point or better advantage to take the House.
Still, don’t get cocky.
SEXUALITY EXPERT: Parents Need to Ask Babies Permission to Change Diapers.
Oh do shut up.
MATTHEW WALTHER: The humorless media has learned nothing.
President Trump sent many journalists into hysterics on Wednesday when he tweeted that he might “take away” press credentials from unspecified purveyors of “Fake News.” “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt?” the 71-year-old real-estate tycoon tweeted at 7:38 a.m., presumably in his pajamas. “Take away credentials?” The press met this obviously inane and idle threat not with an eye roll, but with gasps and whinges and cries of alarm. It was an “assault on the First Amendment,” the White House Correspondents Association huffed.
Spare me. Here is the painful truth for the emotional kindergartners who increasingly make up the Washington press corps: Our 45th president was making a joke to rile you up because he thinks it’s hilarious.
Whether or not you found the President’s tweet humorous, the press’s reaction to it has been hysterical.
CHANGE? Nikki Haley Calls for Regime Change in Venezuela: ‘It’s Time for Maduro to Go!’
He won’t go before there’s nothing left to loot.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Obama Legacy Deserves To Be Destroyed.
David Harsanyi:
The Constitution doesn’t say “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law unless liberals tell us it’s super important.” Yet, shortly after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration realized it would need more subsidies and asked for an appropriation from Congress.
When Congress, then teeming with politicians elected on the promise of overturning Obamacare, refused, Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew ordered the administration to begin making “cost-sharing reduction” payments anyway without any public legal justification. Obama created a $7 billion per year appropriation for insurance companies participating in the supposedly self-sufficient and competitive state health-care exchanges. Not a single liberal pundit that I know of concerned himself with this norm-breaking.
One federal court found the Obamacare subsidy unconstitutional, and the case is working towards the Supreme Court. But, then again, no administration in memory was stopped more often by courts, often by unanimous SCOTUS decisions. Whether it was ignoring the Senate in making appointments or claiming to rewrite employment law, Obama tried to function without constitutional restraints.
None of this even breaches the unprecedented regulatory regime Obama built to circumvent the legislative branch. Even The New York Times characterized his governing as “bureaucratic bulldozing, rather than legislative transparency.”
Change it back.
BLUE WAVE? Why the Democrats Just Lost the Senate. “While Nancy Pelosi is shopping for speaker’s gavels, Chuck Schumer should be preparing for another term as minority leader.”
Because the bulk of Republican incumbents up for reelection this year are in states that are nearly impregnable—think Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming—Democrats will almost certainly have to defeat Nevada’s Dean Heller and pick up the Arizona seat left open by Jeff Flake’s retirement.
Beyond that pair, everything else is a stretch. Rep. Marsha Blackburn appears capable of blowing a lay-up open seat in Tennessee for the Republicans, and there are signs that Sen. Ted Cruz could be ripe for a takedown from cash-flush Democrat Beto O’Rourke in Texas, but both of those races are mostly progressive wishcasting at this point.
In any case, picking up two seats is the easy part. The Democrats must also protect incumbents in 10 states that Trump won in 2016. Five of those senators (Indiana’s Joe Donnelly; Missouri’s Claire McCaskill; Montana’s Jon Tester; North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp; and Manchin) represent states where Hillary Clinton failed to muster even 40 percent of the vote.
The Democratic brand is no asset in many of these places. Equally important, the president known for his historically weak approval ratings at the national level remains popular locally in states like Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.
Charlie Mahtesian repeats the conventional wisdom that “the House seems to be a lost cause for Republicans,” but that might not be the case.
Anyway, don’t get cocky.
LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: One million people enter Colombia amid Venezuela crisis.
“To date we know that approximately one million people have entered Colombia through official migration points, and we don’t know how many have entered Colombia through unofficial migration points,” he said in a phone interview in Geneva, specifying that this movement had occurred “since mid-2017.”
With the economic crisis in Venezuela intensifying, an estimated 37,000 people were now moving across the Colombian border each day, he added.
On a recent trip to the region, Capobianco said he witnessed “a constant stream of people,” leaving Venezuela, some with their belongings strapped to the backs.
While the group is diverse, with some only looking to work in Colombia for a short period before returning home, most are on the move because they cannot meet their basic needs in Venezuela, Capobianco explained.
He described the situation as a “humanitarian crisis that needs to be better assessed,” including from a public health standpoint amid rising cases of malaria, diphtheria and other serious ailments affecting those migrating.
Weird how you never see this kind of thing happen in capitalist countries where the workers are exploited.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Hostages Returned to America and Much, Much More.
CIVIL RIGHTS/CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE UPDATE: Illinois counties declare themselves ‘sanctuary’ counties for gun owners.
IRONIC COMING FROM THE PUBLICATION WHICH FIRED KEVIN WILLIAMSON AFTER JUST ONE COLUMN: The CIA Needs an Independent Thinker—Not Gina Haspel.
WORST. RACIST. EVER. Hispanics Score Under Trump. “Among Latinos, the jobless rate has only registered below 5 percent for seven months total – in the history of this country. Six of those months have occurred with Donald Trump in the White House, including the April report released last week.”
It’s been a long time since Democrats professed to believe that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” and Trump’s embrace of it could prove to be the ultimate wedge issue.
BLUE WAVE: Is the Midwest the Next South for the Democratic Party?
The president’s courting of voters in the Heartland is a shrewd political calculation by Team Trump. More than half of the 206 so-called “pivot” counties—areas that twice voted for Obama then switched to Trump in 2016—are located in the Midwest, as are four “pivot” states: Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Hillary Clinton won Minnesota by fewer than 50,000 votes; Barack Obama won it by 225,000 votes in 2012.
Over the past decade, Midwestern states have been bleeding blue votes and politicians. With the exception of Minnesota, every single Midwestern state has a Republican governor (even my home state, the basket case Illinois) and Republicans control state houses throughout the Midwest except for Illinois. This once-reliably Democratic region is turning red faster than Elon Musk’s investors and Trump is only part of the reason why.
Democrats have been counting on the Great Lakes to deliver a Big Blue Wave this November to help win back control of Congress, but the current outlook portends a possible riptide that threatens to carry Democrats even further out to political sea. With no compelling message aside from impeachment, no policy agenda for the economy or national security, and no tactical strategy to lure swing voters back, Democrats might reverse the historical trend of the out-of-power party gaining more power in the midterm election. Republicans have a legitimate chance to expand their majority in the U.S. Senate and curtail losses in the House to less than a dozen seats.
Is the Midwest the next South for the Democratic Party?
Julie Kelly has the distressing numbers — distressing for midwestern Democrats.
THIS IS A LAZY AND STUPID TAKE: The Iran Nuclear Deal’s Unraveling Raises Fears of Cyberattacks.
When the US last tightened its sanctions against Iran in 2012, then-president Barack Obama boasted that they were “virtually grinding the Iranian economy to a halt.” Iran fired back with one of the broadest series of cyberattacks ever to target the US, bombarding practically every major American bank with months of intermittent distributed denial of service attacks that pummeled their websites with junk traffic, knocking them offline. Three years later, the Obama administration lifted many of those sanctions in exchange for Iran’s promise to halt its nuclear development; Tehran has since mostly restrained its state-sponsored online attacks against Western targets.
Now, with little more than a word from President Trump, that détente appears to have ended. And with it, the lull in Iranian cyberattacks on the West may be coming to an end, too.
I guess the lesson here is that Obama should never have loosened the screws, and allowed the Iranian economy to come to a complete halt — and with it, the Mullah’s regime.
But we knew that already.
NICOLE RUSSELL: 5 Things CNN Gets Wrong About the Patriarchy. “Sorry, CNN, the patriarchy doesn’t cause every bad thing in the universe.”
May 9, 2018
YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Has a Very Important Message. “It’s okay to have a dad bod.”
Nobody tell Glenn that.