Garrett Eps: "America's Goodly Veneer Was A Lie"

unhinged.

The little lies and lunacies get piled up with the bigger ones...and you end up with big ol' pile of crazy.

Emma Sulkowicz (Mattress Girl) Is Right-Curious

She's definitely right about one thing--it's way more interesting to talk to conservatives these days. People on the left are typically either incapable of or afraid to leave the wagon ruts that have been carved out by progressive consensus. If you want to talk to people who are actually going to think outside the orthodox box and take dialectical risks, you're gonna wanna go somewhere that's not the left.

"Gender" "Transition" Surgery On Minors Should Be A Felony

obviously

John Daniel Davidson: "Obama Is Right To Criticize 'Cancel Culture,' But The Left Isn't Listening"

The term 'cancel culture' demonstrates that the crazy left doesn't have exclusive rights to making up stupid terminology. But whatevs. This is basically right. Including the claim that BHO is a day late and a dollar short. But, though he may have the most clout against PC nuttery, he's in a bad position from which to exercise that clout--especially when any such criticism will benefit Trump.
   Anyway. I hope for more and better from him in the future.

Congrats To The Nats

I'm not particularly a Nats fan...in fact I rarely watch baseball anymore. But I feel like I ought to be. Someday, when I have time for a second sport in my life, I'll add in Baseball again. Though baseball--and this is hardly a secret--is way better in person. It's the sport that loses the most on tv, IMO. But anyway: congrats to the Nats. (Homer: GO 'TOPES--WOOOOOO!)

Obama Busts on Progressive / PC / SJW Madness

My read on this is that he's trying to make the point as minimally as possible, while walking on eggshells. He's sticking to some inoffensive tropes familiar to and popular on the (at least older) left: don't be so judgmental...the world is full of ambiguity... But also: you should get over it right away.
   Of course one of my fondest hopes is that Obama should come out as enthusiastically anti-PC...so I'm not objective. But I think I kinda have a feel for the guy, and I think what he said indicates that he largely knows what's what. My WAG is that he doesn't want to say what he has to say when it might help out Trump. But it's in there. And some day it might even come out. But, then, I've always thought that the guy was more of a centrist than many people think he is.

[Also: the criticism "that's not activism"...that's the kind of BS that PCs are likely to take seriously. It's a left-friendly objection because it doesn't criticize the content of the thing. The important criticisms are from their right, and they simply don't accept criticism from their right. It's a kind of criticism from the left (where "activism" is always good)...but a content criticism from the left would tend to move them even farther in that direction. It's also a criticism of means not ends--also acceptable to the left. ]

Impeachment Fever, Catch...No, Wait...This Is The PRE-Impeachment... Impeachment Fever Fever--Catch It!

If Trump were wilier, I'd say this was kind of a rope-a-dope. 

But I guess it's a dope-a-dope.

To quote the great ponderer of (im?)ponderables:

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Charles Lipson: "Democracy Dies In Derangement, Too"

This is right.
   Trump is a problem. It's not clear to me that he's a bigger problem than a deranged, highly-partisan media that constantly spins the information it inputs into our public discussions and deliberations--always in the same direction. It doesn't help that it's a bad direction--but just about any direction is bad if you're a %&$#ing lunatic about it.

TRUMP TWEETS FAKED PHOTO OF HERO DOG GETTING MEDAL!!!!!111

Breaking!

ZOMG IS THIS THE END OF DRUMPFFF?????!!!!!

So uh...when is the NYT going to sign the deed or whatever over to Trump? Might as well make it official...

FREE HONG KONG

That is all.

Ukrainegate Whistleblower Is A Democratic Operative

This is much bigger than anything Vindman had to say.

Trump Al-Baghdadi Announcement vs.Obama OBL Announcement

No comparison, obviously.
  I wasn't wild about the "respectful" burial at sea bit...but I understand why Obama said it. Trump's announcement was just vulgar. "Died like a dog" particularly bugged me, for the same reason such locutions bug a lot of people: dogs are noble critters, and it bothers me for them to be spoken of in that way. Especially weird given the role of dogs in getting this particular evildoer...and given that one of the dogs could easily have died herself--nobly. Though I'm in danger of making a mountain out of a molehill.
   Anyway. It's hard to believe that we went from Obama to Trump. And the contrast between the two announcements is just one more thing making the contrast painfully obvious.

WaPo Accounts of Trump/Ukraine "Dirty Drug Deal"

Explosive if true.
However: sounds pretty much like the outright lies we were fed by the WaPo and NYT about Russiagate.
We live in disheartening times.
It will, of course, be darkly humorous if Trump gets busted for chicanery directed at Biden, but Biden isn't the nominee.

Vindman Sought To Correct Transcript Of Ukraine Call

This seems huge.
It seems to swing the pendulum way back in the Democrats' favor.
   Also, as if we needed reminding: Trump is a God-damned train wreck. Unless this sort of thing is something akin to SOP for such negotiations--and by this point it's pretty clear that it isn't--this could...maybe...finally be the impeachable offense Dems have been screeching about for three years.
   The irony here is that it's their hysterical, non-stop string of spastic accusations that seems to have driven him to this particular bit of dirty-dealing. But if you can't take the heat, you may very well be provoked into doing something that gets you kicked out of the kitchen...

"Drag Queen" Exposes Himself To Kids At "Drag Queen Story Hour"

Gosh, how could anyone see this sort of thing coming? How could such a thing happen at such a wholesome event--an event having absolutely nothing to do with the weird sexual predilections?
   You can be against repressive sexual mores without being a complete goddamn idiot about it, you know.
   In fact, progressivism in general is what you get when you abandon the idea that it's possible to be a liberal without being a complete goddamn idiot about it--for basically any value of 'it.'

Richard Stengel: Absolutely The Dumbest Op-Ed On Free Speech You're Ever Likely To Read

link
Stengel's op-ed was even to nutty for the WaPo peanut gallery...which is saying a lot.
But the left's going to keep pushing, and this "hate speech" delusion is their favorite note to hit.

Some Republicans Smear Alexander Vindman

Disgusting--though it seems to have been Sean Duffy, Rudy Giuliani, and Laura Ingram. Contra the NRO, that's not "Congressional Republicans."
Yoo's explanation of his comments makes perfect sense. He was not smearing Vindman, he was suggesting that the Ukrainians may have been conducting espionage on us. If someone says something importantly ambiguous, they have the right to disambiguate it.

Larison On Trump And Syria

link:

It doesn’t bode well for U.S. interests when the president’s subordinates are determined to manipulate him into perpetuating an illegal military deployment in a war zone and the president is gullible enough to be so easily swayed because of his crude desire for stealing other countries’ resources.

I don't disagree. But Larison seems unwilling to ever give Trump his due. Seems to me that he deserves some kind of credit for trying to get us out of Syria.

Turley: "The New Censors: The Call For Banning Political Lies Threatens Free Speech"

Guess which side of the aisle wants speech restrictions?
Go on, guess!

Lee Smith: "How The Obama Administration Set In Motion Democrats' Coup Against Trump"

This is jaw-dropping, even as a set of hypotheses.

Odds that it's true?

Significantly true (say, 1/3 of it's true): I'm going to say: pretty good (whatever that means).

Mostly true (say 2/3 true): I'm going to say: nontrivial?

Just about all true (say 9/10 true): I just can't believe it. I'm afraid I just won't believe it. But also: I...just can't believe it.

The right was right about Russiagate, the left was fantastically wrong. 

There the right was playing defense, so they had an advantage: the prior probability of Russiagate being true was low. But...that doesn't matter much, does it? What matters is that, despite that, the left was passionately convinced--basically certain--that their nutty Russiagate story was true. Eh, I've lost the thread. At any rate, now the right is on something like offense. I have to believe that the prior probability of this Obama basically participated in a coup against Trump story...it...just can't be true...right? OTOH...Trump did legit freak out some pretty sane people...myself, I might say, included...

I dunno, man.

If the right is right about this...it's game over for the left.

HK Protests "Spread to U.S. Colleges, and a Rift Grows"

Yes, it would be nice if our colleges and universities were actually against oppression...but--also yes--China and our own illiberal progressives do seem to agree on rather a lot...

Further Adventures in "Intersectionality"

lame

Delta Force Gets A Solution On Al Baghdadi

I guessed that Delta would get the nod this time--though I didn't guess that they'd have Rangers with them. Seal Team Six got the OBL raid, so I figured this time it'd be the CAG/Army.
Nice work, gentlemen. And big props to the Delta doggos.
We're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I do think there's a significant lesson here: you fuck with the United States of America at your peril.

WaPo on Baghdadi: "Austere Religious Scholar At Helm Of Iraqi State Dies At 48"

You really can't make this stuff up.

Is The Moderate Middle A Myth?

maybe

Elijah Cummings: "We Are In A Fight For The Soul Of Our Democracy"

link
I wasn't on the same page as Congressman Cummings, but I did/do respect the man. I'm with those (not only on the right) who doubt the tales of significant Russian interference in our elections, for example. And I don't agree that only one side currently constitutes a danger to the republic--which I assume is his suggestion. But I definitely agree with this:

   For the unity and future of our republic, our Congress must reassert its constitutional obligation of oversight, seeking and obtaining the answers to serious questions of governance that, until now, have gone unanswered. We must perform this constitutional duty so effectively and convincingly that those Americans who support this president and his administration and those who disagree will reach a shared and united answer as to how our nation must proceed.
   I remain confident that we can fulfill this historic duty. To succeed, however, we will need our federal civil service and the Americans who serve us there to give us their complete and unbiased cooperation. To the extent that we are required to do so, we will enforce that cooperation through action in our courts, but I sincerely hope that this route will seldom be necessary. Toward this end, I will close with this pledge. In the words of my heroine, former congresswoman Barbara Jordan, from 1974:
   “My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, [or] the destruction of the Constitution. I hope and trust that all Americans feel — and will do — the same.”

I also agree with his attitude toward Barbara Jordan, and with her attitude about the Constitution. This would likely be a better country today if she hadn't died so young.

Trump Orders Federal Agencies To Cancel WaPo, NYT Subscriptions

Petty...but funny...but petty.

Bernie Will Liquidate The Capitalist Scum

I was just sitting around last night and thinking: Bernie...what about Bernie? He obviously isn't that wild about this social "justice" nonsense... I mean, sure, he's hopped on the bandwagon...but I just don't think his heart's in it...maybe he'll win the thing and be < 1000% insane...
   Then there's this, via Instapundit.
   sigh

Mate: "Ukrainegate Risks Handing Trump Another Gift"

I think a better title would be: "Ukrainegate: Russiagate 2.0?"
The Democrats apparently remain dedicated to making that guy look like the least-catastrophic option.

Trump Recieves Bipartisan Justice Award

Worst. Racist. Ev-ar.

Turley: Trump's Lawyers Wrong That POTUS Could Commit Murder And Not Be Charged Til After His Term In Office

Well you gotta draw the line somewhere...

Trump: "Never-Trump" Pubs Are "Human Scum"

That guy is pathological..

Antipresidential.

One can be excused for pointing out that progressives routinely call all Republicans much worse than that thousands of times per day...but they're not the damn president. 

He's got to be completely unmoored if no one can even convince him to put down the tweeter. Without Twitter, he might just be a shoe-in for '20.

That guy's off his rocker.

Nobody Ever Crosses Along About 850 Miles Of The Border

This is why a sea-to-sea wall is a bad idea.
A sea-to-sea barrier is a much less crazy idea than open borders or tearing down existing fencing...but that's setting the bar too low for it to really mean anything.

Should We Move Federal Agencies Out Of DC?

It's a really interesting idea, and we ought to think about it.
Obviously not the sort of thing to be done soon, nor without a lot of thought.

Ben Carson Refuses To Bend The Knee To PC BS

Well, "transgender" "women" are, in fact, men.
Some are big: true or false?
Some are hairy: true or false?
Question: what exactly is Carson supposed to apologize for?

Men Now More Hesitant To Interact With Female Colleagues...

...which obviously means...that men are punishing women for "#MeToo."
Because the most contrived, social-justicey explanation is always the most likely explanation.

SHOCKING! Photos Of CA Congresswoman Katie Hill!!!

Seriously.
Clean your bongs, people.
I can't stress this enough.

Russiagate: Origins

This is gonna be extremely interesting.

TX Judge Rules Father Has A Say In 7yo Son's "Gender" "Transition"

So this has dropped from utterly insane to merely insane.
Even five years ago, I doubt anyone would believe this ludicrous lunacy.
In a sane world, the mother would lose all rights to see and make decisions for the boy.
I certainly hope that he completely cuts her out of his life once he hits the age of reason.

[Turns out it's still utterly insane.]

Jail Time For Public Rudeness?

Goodbye, First Amendment.
   Progressives are bending over backwards to make up stories about what these guys were doing. In fact, they were playing a game in which they said rude words loudly. One of those words was a notorious racial slur that has become so magical that it can't even be used oratio obliqua anymore. Except in rap songs. Where it can be shouted from the rooftops...
   Their speech--though undeniably rude and shitty--is clearly protected...even at universities, where speech is now least-free.
   I hope they learned a lesson about public rudeness, and never do that gain.
   I also hope they sue the shit out of the university and the state of Connecticut.

Is This The End For Drumpfpfpffff???

By induction, I conclude in the negative.

Remember When The Deep State Was A Conservative Conspiracy Theory...

...instead of the Justice League?

My Current General Orientation With Respect To Additional Gun Control

I used to be pretty receptive to some kind of additional controls on modern sporting rifles and high-capacity magazines. I've rarely been inclined toward bans, but I've often been receptive to additional restrictions--e.g. additional background checks, registration, and the like. That's part of the reason I gave up on the NRA when I was pretty young.
   However, as the American left has rapidly radicalized over the past six-or-so years, I've become more skeptical of any initiatives they support. Their political character has become so warped that their supporting something makes me wonder what's wrong with it.
   Currently, I'm generally inclined to think: I absolutely will not even consider supporting additional gun control measures so long as the most powerful/influential political faction in the country is becoming increasingly repressive, totalitarian and anti-rational. So long as the left (or the right, for that matter) is, for example, making a notable push to undermine the First Amendment, there is absolutely no way I'm going to be complicit in undermining the Second Amendment.
   Currently, IMO, things are going in a very, very dangerous direction.
   So, for the time being, the left has, in effect, forced me to take additional gun control measures off the table, so far as my personal position goes.
   Maybe everything will be ok.
   I fervently hope so. I'd still even bet some money on the proposition that things will be less rotten/crazy/stupid ten years from now than they are today. I certainly hope we've hit something like a low point.
   But I'm less confident about the future of the nation than I ever have been before in my life, to be perfectly honest about it.

How On Earth Did It Come To Pass...

...that the faction that used to be the liberals is pushing initiatives to undermine free speech basically every time we turn around? How is it that my used-to-be-liberal friends basically just don't seem to care very much about it?
   I'd have thought that even one crazy effort to undermine free speech would get Americans to break out the torches and pitchforks. But such efforts seem to arise routinely now...and they elicit barely a peep from the remnants of liberalism.
   If you think everything's going to be ok, you're probably deluding yourself. I see no reason to have much confidence that everything's going to be ok.

"Jennifer" (nee Jonathan) Yaniv's Legal Effort To Force Women To Wax His Junk Fails

Yaniv is a man who pretends to be a woman, and he's apparently been going around suing women who, like, wax other women's genitals for a living. Which...I mean...I guess it's a living or whatever. But anyway, what with him obviously being a dude and all, they didn't want to wax his junk.

   Anyhoo, because today, in clown world, simply by pretending that you're of the opposite sex, you can pretend that other people have to pretend along with you. 

   Apparently this was too far even for Canada.

   Which...wow.

   Anyway, Yaniv lost in court.

   If you went back in time and told people about this shit ten years in the past, there is exactly no chance whatsoever they'd believe you.

Anxious Democratic Establishment Asks "Is There Anybody Else?"

Or is it septuagenarian socialists all the way down?

It Is Not Good That A Drug Cartel Seems To Have Just Defeated The Mexican Army...

...but I would not call a small dump truck with an M2 stuck in the back a "custom-built armored vehicle"... "DIY," maybe.

Scott Adams On The Charlottesville / "Very Fine People" Hoax

With some brief comments on the other "Trump is a racist!" hoaxes.
I've made many of these points here in the past.
   Trump speaks imprecisely. 'Sloppily' might be a better term. Painfully sloppily. La Resistance is always on the lookout for any sign of racism...and for anything they can twist so as to make it falsely seem racist. Accusations of prejudice are the coin of the realm on the contemporary left--and truth isn't a terribly significant desideratum. It would be bad if Trump said racist things. It's also bad that the left incautiously--and often intentionally--twists what he says in order to make it falsely seem racist. It's despicable to, inter alia, trick nonwhites into believing that the POTUS is racist. But sowing fear is one of their main tactics. We see it at work in the climate debate as well. Their point is to terrify people in order to suppress dissent and convince people to rush headlong toward progressive policies. The right does this sort of thing too, of course. They did it with respect to Gulf War Episode II: The Phantom Menace. And, in general, they tend to do it with respect to Islam. This tactic isn't any more common on the left than on the right, I'd say.
   Anyway: Adams is right.
   And none of the allegations about Trump saying racist things has ever worked out when the details have been honestly examined.

Larry Elder: "The Rise Of Young Black Conservatives"

link

Podhoretz: Every Day Seems Like The Worst Day Of The Trump Presidency

Ain't that the truth.

Allison Stanger: "Whistle-blowers Are The Best Defense Against Global Corruption"

link

"Democrats Want To Impeach Trump; They haven't Decided Why"

sigh
   Yeah, that kinda summarizes much about the approach of the TDS "resistance."
The idea on the other end of the link is basically: Dems might focus on Ukrainegate specifically, or they might make a broader case against Trump generally. It's the tendency behind the latter option that's worrisome.
   I wonder whether we have to think about the flip side of this: should those of us thinking about whether to support impeachment think in terms of Ukrainegate specifically, or about the Dems'/left's general, often loopy, effort to undermine Trump? Even if Trump violated the law in Ukrainegate, one might think: given the general, on-going effort to undermine a duly-elected president, we should oppose impeachment.
   The overlay on all of this, IMO, is: almost none of us know enough about impeachment to understand even its basic technical, legal details. I certainly don't.
   Part of me, of course, would breathe a sigh of relief were Trump convicted and ousted. But it's got to be done legally. And, of course, given the way the Dems are now talking and acting, I'm inclined to think we'd merely be leaving behind the frying pan for the much warmer embrace of the fire. Because if Trump goes, it seems we'd be stuck with the newly-radical and irrational Dems in '20.
   I still see no very good path forward for us in the near future.

Tulsi Gabbard, Illuminatus?

Now we're talkin'
This is the kind of conspiracy theory I can get behind.
And remember: John Dillinger died for you.

Trudeau Reelected

That's extremely unfortunate.

Transgender Totalitarianism: The State Forces A Father To Accept The Imposition of Gender Superstition On His Child

Utter madness
   Not only is Texas, of all places, using the coercive power of the state to force a pseudoscientific, quasi-religious superstition onto one of its citizens, it's forcing him to act in accordance with said pseudoscientific, quasi-religious superstition, while watching his son be chemically mutilated. Else he'll be cut out of the boy's life completely--and the mutilation will proceed anyway.
   This is not even a tiny bit sane.
   This lunacy went from unheard-of to enforced by the state in less than a decade. Even if you--incorrectly--agree with everything else being done here, you have to be concerned that the state is enforcing this sort of thing on parents and children.

Russians! Under My Bed!: Matt Taibbi: Everyone Is a Russian Asset: Tulsi Gabbard Is A Russian Asset Edition

Via Glenn Reynolds. Title template by Glenn Reynolds. Basically all Glenn Reynolds.
Well, mostly Matt Taibbi, actually...
link
At some point...surely...this will all become too absurd for anyone but the most politically correct lefties to accept with straight faces.
Right?
RIGHT???
What's weird is that so many over there are not only still buying this stuff, but they still think they're the rational ones. They have an unshakable faith in their own intelligence and virtue. Given the absolutely, outlandishly absurd stuff they've accepted in the last five-or-so years, one can't help but wonder at what point they might at least consider the possibility that maybe--just maybe--they aren't completely infallible...
I've really never seen anything like this before.

Bonnie Mann: "The Toxic Masculinity Of The Trump Administration"

Hey, do me a favor.
If I ever write anything this dumb and shitty, just shove me off a cliff.
I don't know which has become more embarrassing, philosophy or the NYT.
I mean, I'm sure that there are people out there who read something like this and think it's good...but damn...that's depressing.

Larison: Trump And His Hawkish Critics Have A Lot In Common

Eh...I'm certainly open to this idea...but I didn't find it all that persuasive. Kinda seems like an off-the-shelf kind of criticism. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

The Left Is Deranged: Jesse Singal / Jeff Goldblum / "#MeToo" / Transgenderism Edition

The Orwellian left is addicted to false accusations.
   Jesse Singal has published very mild criticisms of transgender ideology. This, of course, is verboten. First, he was accused of "transphobia"--which is, of course, a version of the contemporary left's only argument: if you disagree with us, you're an evil bigot--though it's a made-up species of bigotry. But when that didn't stop him, they deployed their second line of defense--as they did against Michael Bailey: they accused him of being obsessed with / into trans"women." Which means: men misrepresenting themselves as women...as everyone knows...but everyone is afraid to say...because they don't want to get the Jesse Singal / Michael Bailey treatment. Because most people find such accusations gross and embarrassing...but they're afraid to say so even when unjustly accused of it...because that's the insane clown world we now live in.
   The contemporary left is deranged. Mental illness needn't be a disorder of an individual person's mind. It can also afflict collective minds. A collection of irrational, totalitarian ideas has infected much of left-of-center America. To make matters worse, such irrational, totalitarian ideas also attract people who just make things worse--e.g. Nicole Cliffe in Singal's example. And everything over there just keeps getting crazier and crazier. And almost all the actual liberals, who could put the brakes on this, are silent.
   One of the sub-varieties of this insanity that contributes to the whole is the tendency to eagerly accept all politically correct accusations without a single shred of proof.
   Contemporary progressives really are making the right-wing religious types of my youth seem...well...not so very terrible by comparison. Given a choice between the two, I think I'd...well, tell 'em both to go get bent, actually. No, seriously: the religious wingnuts who drove me so crazy as a kid were pikers compared to the Orwellian left.

U.S. Soldiers Who Fought Alongside Kurds Blast Trump's Syria Retreat

link

Merkel Says German Multiculturalism Has Failed

No surprise here.
   "Multiculturalism" is one of the bad ideas from the paleo-PC era. In fact, it's one of their better bad ideas in that it comes in various forms and degrees, and some of those are good. Nobody thinks that immigrants should entirely abandon their entire culture when they come here (or go to Germany).  Notoriously, though rather superficially, there's the food thing. But immigrants are and should be expected to accept the basic outlines and fundamental tenets of the culture. Immigrants who, en masse, reject the idea of liberal constitutional democracy are going to have a bad time here--for good reasons. There are and must be limits to our pluralism.
   Strong versions of multiculturalism are blueprints for disaster, of course. There's no reason to think that we could live peacefully and side-by-side with, say, an extremely large minority that rejected the basic tenets of Western civilization, e.g. rejecting the ideas of reason, tolerance and secular government. There's simply no reason to think that has any hope of working.
   No one voted on multiculturalism. It's not an official policy nor any such thing. As with the neo-PCs, the paleo-PCs merely screeched until everyone was cowed into going along with it.
   And, of course, they motte-and-bailey it: they promote radical versions of multiculturalism, but retreat to more modest versions (e.g. about food) when challenged.
   And it's no secret that the PC left hates Western culture and seeks its destruction. They don't exactly play that close to the vest. If you're not familiar with their quasi-philosophical, semi-official position on that, I suggest that you become familiar with it.  And that's exactly what stronger versions of multiculturalism aim at. The strategy is to convince Western nations that they are obligated to take in masses of people from alien and often hostile cultures. They're not allowed to seek assimilation, but the new cultures must be treated as co-equal...or, actually, superior. Because that's how this sector of the left works: talk of equality is always just a way station toward a new hierarchy. And we're obligated to keep taking in more and more such immigrants until we "look like the world"--i.e., the members of the old culture are in the minority. We're encouraged to believe that assimilation will happen anyway, and that we'll magically remain a liberal Western democracy. But that's not the aim, and it's not the likely outcome of strong multiculturalism.
   So in a way, Merkel is wrong: in Germany, strong multiculturalism is succeeding--this is what it was meant to do all along.

Great New Terrible Progressive Ideas: Votes 4 Kidz!

I've just lost all patience with the progressive left. But come on.
This essay actually strengthens the case against child voting. As if it needed strengthening. This is the kind of rejection of obvious fact and the tried-and-true experimental conclusions of the ages that makes the contemporary left so ridiculous--and dangerous.
While we're at it, let's lower the drinking age, minimum age for military service, age of consent for sex...which...that last one seems to be a progressive goal on the horizon anyway, so...
Note the essay also includes a bunch of other bad ideas unrelated to child voting, all aimed at increasing the power of the left--e.g. eliminating the Electoral College. So let's be clear about the real point of the thing.
Also check out the list of positions kids seem to support, including: the rest of us paying for their college, and the rest of us providing $5,000 to them when they turn 18...though...why should they have to wait for the money? I mean, isn't that just as bad as expecting them to wait until 18 to vote? Wonder how much money 4-year-olds would ultimately demand from us for candy?
As with many such ideas, it's fine to discuss as an academic question. But this is not a real, serious policy proposal.

[Furthermore....do you really think it's even vaguely plausible that parents undervalue their children and give their children's interest insufficient weight? And grandparents their grandchildren? As is so often the case, one is tempted to ask progressives: have you ever met any humans? That's not even vaguely plausible. So this isn't about taking children's interest into account--it's already taken into account in spades. This is about which beliefs, judgments and reasoning will be taken into account. And it's on that score that children are deficient. One suspects that certain groups would like kids to vote because they're easily manipulated--especially by tugging on their heartstrings...]

Beto, Booker and Castro Endorse The "Menstrual Equity Act" For "National Period Day"

I would like to stress the fact that I am not making this up.

How Come Any Time We Want To Abandon A Front In The ForeverWar, It's Going To Be (A) Catastrophe[r]?

I don't understand anything about Syria.
   But I'm not so clueless as to not have noticed that every time someone tries to pull us out of one front or another in the ForeverWar, it's going to be a catastrophe!!!!111
   Look: Syria's going to be a catastrophe no matter what we do. So pointing out that us leaving will lead to catastrophe is virtually meaningless by itself. What we need to know is whether the catastrophe that will happen without us being involved is catastropher than the catastrophe that we're likely to be able to effect.
   I tend to favor using our power to try to make the world a better place. I'm no foreign policy "realist" (a misnomer, that...). But after Iraq, I became less optimistic about what we can do in places like the ME.
   Maybe Trump's an idiot or a villain for trying to get us extricated from the Syrian mess. But he's going to be called that no matter what. (And, in fact, no matter what he does about no matter what...)  And so is anyone else who tries to do it. So the mere fact that he is being called those things tells me virtually nothing. I'm willing to believe that he's done something morally or strategically disastrous. But I won't believe it until the screeching dies down and I can hear both the cases stated clearly.

Russians! Under My Bed!*: Hillary/Tulsi Edition

Wow.
Progressive Russteria and red-baiting is approaching 1950s conservative levels of crazy.
Gabbard--like all the other current Dems--is way too far to the left on too many things. But at least she seems to be vaguely sane.
And once again: it's not that I'm unwilling to have a national discussion about some of the proposed leaps leftward. But I'm not willing to do them all--or any significant number of them--or, well, any of them--without significant prior thought and discussion.


*Glenn Reynolds's unpatented ridicule template.

"In 'Cave-In,' Trump Cease-Fire Cements Turkey's Gains In Syria"

Uh...no credit whatsoever? Just straight to "Cave-in" and "cements Turkey's gains"...?

Sounds like bullshit to me...but I could obviously be wrong.

CNN And Trump On Impeachment

They manage to make him look sympathetic.

China Hacks Our Shit: Commercial Airliners

link

"Doctor" Advises Children To Threaten Suicide In Order To Get "Transgender" Treatments

I couldn't bear to listen to more than a few minutes of the tape.
This is madness.

Are The Dems Fixing A Student Loan Crisis That Doesn't Exist?

maybe

Warren Davidson: Trump Is Right: Ending The Endless Wars Starts In Syria

I have no idea what's going on. My first inclination was to abhor abandoning the Kurds...er...despite the fact that they didn't help us out in WWII...
But then I started basically thinking that something like this is right.

I Have No Idea What's Going On: Pence/Turkey

But this sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
The MSM sites are, as usual, 100% anti-Trump on this...so I have to make my own guesses.

Romney Pitches Unsubstantiated Speculation About Turkey: WaPo Prints It Right Up

I'm not saying they shouldn't have printed it. I'm saying that, against the backdrop of their willingness to print any anti-Trump lunacy that rears its head...well...it's par for the course.

More Left-Wing Violence At Minneapolis Trump Rally

   If you don't think left-wing violence is a problem, you're simply not paying attention. This sort of thing simply isn't uncommon anymore. The MSM was filled with headlines about the fact that some right-wing militia-types were going to provide security for rally-goers. It was completely silent about this psychopathic violence. I'm no fan of right-wing militia-types. But they are preferable to these rabid lunatics.
   IMO, this sector of the left will not listen to reason. And they have no mercy, largely because they think that anyone who disagrees with them is evil. The only remedy is to fight back and beat them down. You can't reason with the unreasonable. There comes a point in human interactions at which violence is the only solution. Either we're stronger than them or they're stronger than us. I wish it were otherwise.

Dreher: Is Trump Mentally Stable?

link
   As usual, I have no idea what's going on.
   Of course this does not sound good. But of course we know we basically can't trust Democratic or media accounts of Trump or his actions. But, if true, it's bad. If half-true, it's still bad. I suppose someone might say: it's nothing compared to the behavior of Lyndon Johnson. But I'm not sure that's a great place to set the bar.
   Pelosi seems sobered, though she says something that had already clicked into the front of my mind about all this. It seems fairly clear to me that the Dems are basically trying to drive Trump over the edge. That's been clear for a long time now. He's rather nutty already, he's got a big mouth and a bad temper, and the left is treating him maybe even worse than the GOP treated Obama--which is saying a lot. (Though I'd say: Trump brings much of it on himself in a way Obama, IMO, did not.)
   Look: turning up the pressure to try to get a president to snap is a disgusting political tactic. But the left's been playing that game for almost three years now. I was very sympathetic to Pelosi in this case, until we got to the "all roads lead to Putin" part. Look: that's just nuts. We see this pattern over and over, in my opinion: Trump's Trump, and, among other things, his demeanor is anti-presidential. (And it's not just his demeanor...but that's a different can of worms.) But the left's already-debunked Putin theory...or obsession...is also nuts. And saying nutty things with a calm demeanor is still saying nutty things. They either believe that nonsense, or it's part of their drive-him-over-the-edge strategy...or, perhaps, both. Either way, it's bad.
   Of course one can respond: a president should be able to take the heat. Even the heat of a concerted campaign to drive him over the edge. And I could not agree more. The fact that Trump can't take it is just another reason he's unfit for the office. I don't disagree in the least. But any faction that uses this tactic is also loathsome and blameworthy in the extreme. Trump's bad enough without the Dems intentionally trying to make him worse. For the love of God, just beat him in 2020. Stop the madness.
   Like Dreher, I think a Democratic win in 2020 will do very serious and long-lasting harm to the Country. It's crucial to keep them out of power until this spasm of extremism exhausts itself. If, God help us, it ever does. But it's already a close call. Trump wouldn't have to get much more erratic before he becomes an even worse bet than he already is.
   I feel like a broken record, but I just don't see any grounds for optimism about the immediate future of the nation. And I'm more and more pessimistic about our long-term prospects.

Larison: Trump's Embarrassing Letter To Erdogan

Unbelievable.
   Trump's managed to be surprisingly good with respect to a surprising number of domestic policies IMO. Far better than I would have ever predicted. But he seems to me to be a disaster with respect to foreign policy. This letter is, indeed, an embarrassment. But, then, Trump's an embarrassment. The letter's a drop in the bucket. Trump has already made us ridiculous.
   Well...lots of things about or politics are currently making us ridiculous. But Trump's the front-man for American absurdity. Our David Lee Roth, if you will. Maybe the election will end up as a Trump-Beto contest, and the nation will simply disappear in a puff of absurdity and humiliation.

So You Think You Can President: Sorry About Yer Son Edition

facepalm

Another Entry In the "Walls Are Always Evil And Never Effective" Genre

facepalm
   My God this is ****ing terrible. I mean, this new genre, beloved by the left, is nothing but sophistry from beginning to end so far as I can tell...but this one seems particularly awful and either dumb or dishonest or both.
   There are plenty of sound arguments against Trump's wall. The best one: there are massive stretches of the border that basically no one is ever going to try to go through. They're just too wild/undeveloped. They are their own barrier. Building artificial barriers there is a waste of money.
   But trying to prove that no fencing is called for anywhere on the border is silly. And trying to prove that on the basis of some crackpot historical universal generalization that walls never work is utterly daft. And trying to argue that all walls are immoral...that's...just...off the scale ridiculous.
   Yet another general reason I'm against the contemporary left: even when good arguments are available, they eschew them in favor of bad ones. I suppose it's because their worldview is so nutty. Good arguments look bad to them, and bad arguments look good. And only the most extreme versions of their favored views are really pure enough. It's not cost-effective in many places is of no interest to them, because they want no barriers at all...because they want to borders at all. And they want the polices they oppose to be not merely wasteful, but awful and evil.
   It's also notable that, as soon as Trump started bloviating about a wall, these stories started being cranked out at the usual places--NYT, WaPo, Newsweek, Salon--to the effect that--amazing!--no wall has ever worked throughout all of history!!! All those people, living desperately, on the brink of horrible death, with few resources...they all built walls for protection despite the fact that they don't work at all! How were they so foolish and benighted about such a simple matter so important to them? Downright astonishing, when you think about it... Anybody who's being even a little bit honest can see that these essays are sophistry. But the commenters seem to eat 'em right up...

Might The Democrats Save The Day?

How about this?:
The Pubs are stuck with Trump. The Dems could easily beat him with a moderate. For the love of God, just nominate someone who gets up there and says, in effect: I'm not here to make big changes; I'm here to keep the lights on, deal with emergencies, and tweak a few things where the benefits are irresistibly clear. I'm going to nominate moderate judges, I'm going to fill the bureaucracy with moderates, I'm going to moderate, moderate, moderate. I'm not going to dance to the tune of the radical, activist left.
   I mean...the real possibility of such a candidate might well have maintained my faith in the blue team. Unless the radical, activist left is lying about its view of Trump, it should happily vote for such a candidate over him. Give us a candidate who's not a crazy train wreck, and we'll be all over 'em.
   As Reynolds keeps saying: all they've got to do is not be crazy.
   How far could a candidate actually swing back toward the center after all this? Not that far, I'm afraid. But part of me hasn't given up hope.
   Suppose Warren stays on track and wins the nomination. My nightmare is a Fauxcahontas/Beto ticket. I don't think she'd pick a female running mate. But she might pick Castro to get the Hispanic vote. That's a beatable but dangerous ticket.
   I guess I'm still kinda hoping for something like: Trump wins, Trump gets impeached, Pence presidency, but he's too shaken to do anything crazy. Dems are scared straight / the Orwellian PC left devours itself and is cast into the outer darkness. Dems return to centrist sanity....  Fusion hits the breakeven point, we invent warp drive, there's a renewal of civic virtue in America...and a pony...
   I'm afraid we're really screwed this time.

Trump Sucks. The Media Sucks. It's a Tuesday.

My God they're all terrible.
This latest Chuck Todd sanctimony/tactic...facepalm.
Shrieking about Trump 24/7 hasn't achieved progressive political ends--largely because, bad as Trump is, the media always seems to exaggerate or otherwise get it wrong. People like me see the headlines and think JESUS, THAT JACKASS HAS REALLY DONE IT THIS TIME... Then we check what he really said or did and inevitably realize that, hey, it seems almost kinda somewhat ok by comparison. So, since misrepresenting what Trump does and also showing its readers/viewers what he really said/did hasn't worked out for them...I guess they've elected to drop the actual reporting about it. This way they can say OMG IT WAS HORRIFIC...and, well, look, if you want to check the veracity of our account, you'll have to go somewhere else. And if the rest of the MSM follows suit, it could turn out to be a non-trivial matter to disconfirm their account.
As usual, Trump's repulsive antics clearly demonstrate that he is anti-presidential. But, as Gillespie notes, the media's treatment of them is even more worrisome.

Is This Catherine Rampell's Cry For Help?

This is basically a battle between two religions: Christianity/Catholicism and progressivism. At least the former acknowledge themselves to be religions, and don't really try to force themselves on the rest of us much anymore. A little ceremonial deism here and there is ok with me. Of course is the abortion debate... People like me do have to try to hammer out modi vivendi with the religious. But the first step in that direction may be to make sure that the religious acknowledge themselves as such. There's no progressive god, but there's sin and confession and magic and wrath and punishment and secret immaterial selves accessible only upon reflection and chosen people and at least one apocalypse...and so on.
   Anyway, liberalism tamed overt religion. But the thinly-veiled religion of progressivism may be too much for it.
   Was Barr calling for a theocracy? I dunno, I didn't read all of his remarks. Sounded to me like he has progressivism's number, and was calling for opposition to its efforts to turn us into a theocracy. But he may have been doing the other thing, too. Both versions of theocratic government are scary dangerous in my book--but only one of them is currently immanentizing its daggum eschaton on our sorry asses.

If Dems Lose It's The End Of The World

I wish it were just a cynical ploy...but I think they really believe it.

In Case It Wasn't Obvious

Warren's Zinger...uh...straight man...was a ringer.

Elizabeth Warren Is Jussie Smollette

The progressive alternative reality also has its less-expansive myths.

Chuck Todd: Trump-Supporters Ignore Reality

I mean, I'm sure they do to some extent.
   But right now, and for the last five years at least, there is simply no doubt that it's the left that's inhabited a fantasy world. From gender madness and transgender mythology to the patriarchy and "white supremacist" America, through Russiagate, climate apocalypticism and the sci-fi Green New Deal. As I've said many times, progressives live in a web of fictions sustained by groupthink. The left even has a kind of semi-official pseudo-philosophy, the postpostmodern mishmash of pomo, poststructuralism, critical theory (in its various forms) and a few other odds and ends. Their semi-official metaphysics is "social constructionism," for chrissake--a view specifically meant to blur the distinction between fact and fiction.
   I've never been the biggest fan of the right. But (setting religion aside for the moment), conservatives are currently much less subject to tweaking their view of reality to bring it into accordance with their political preferences.

Taibbi: "We're In A Permanent Coup"

Absolutely, positively read this.

CNN's "LGBT" Town Hall

Three minutes of pure, unadulterated cringe.
Remember when the gay rights movement was about freedom rather than...whatever the hell it's about now?
As God is my witness, I swear that liberals used to be sane.

You're A White Male!!!

Ergo STFU.
   Of course women are entitled to hold forth on "male privilege," masculinity, and everything else associated with being male. Nonwhites are entitled to lecture us on "whiteness" and "white supremacy," and blah blah blah.
   Of course the view is carefully jury-rigged and retrofitted with qualifications and epicycles in order to guarantee that those in the upper-reaches of the progressive stack are granted every epistemic and dialectical advantage. Wouldn't want pesky considerations of consistency tripping them up at any point. I take it that the main retrofit is Marxist: the working class is epistemically privileged and knows more about the bourgeoisie than it knows about itself; the working class, however, remains opaque to the bourgeoisie. 'Cause power or whatevs. And mutatis mutandis, the same goes for race.
   I actually think there some grain of truth in such a view. If a certain group of haves (or whatever) occupies center stage, all the have-nots (or whatever) observe them carefully all the time, whereas the haves barely even notice the have-nots, obscured in the shadows. Lithuania and Lithuanians know a lot about the U.S. and Americans; this is not reciprocated.
   But the neo-Marxist left takes a smallish and easily-overcome difference in degree and, as is its wont, turns it into an in-principle difference: it's impossible for whites to know about...well...whatever it is that it's convenient for the left to deny that they know about...
   Mostly, of course, this is just a cover-story to give progressives an excuse for talking over white dudes. Because, as it turns out, a lot of people have a hard time accepting equality. They can accept the inferiority of x to y, or flip it to the inferiority of y to x--but the idea of equality turns out to be an unstable position for them. Somebody has to be inferior.

Barr On Secularism's "Organized Destruction"

I think it's obvious that Barr is right about this bit (but not some other stuff he said):

   “This is not decay,” Barr said. “This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”
   Barr said state governments and municipal agencies have been at the vanguard of that effort, noting the board of education in Orange County, California, recently decided religious dissenters may not excuse their children from portions of the school curriculum broaching LGBT issues. Schools are the usual forum for attacks on religious liberty, Barr said.

I tend to be on the other side of these issues. I don't think religion is necessary for morality, nor that its absence necessarily leads to moral decay. So with respect to those core issues, I'm a "secularist."
   But I do agree that the left is seeking to destroy traditional American culture. I think that could hardly be clearer. It doesn't seek to argue and convince, but to silence and crush. And it moves ever more rapidly toward that goal.
   Like me, you probably abhor talk of "Civil War 2". But a conservative friend of mine says that folks on my side ought to at least be able to understand why people on the right have begun talking about it. They have reason--good reason--to believe that their (and our) culture is being destroyed, and that the democratic institutions that are supposed to allow them to protect themselves have been coopted by the destroyers. What should be decided by legislation is instead decided by the courts. They are being told that they must accept outright contradictions like "some men are female." Huge numbers of illegal immigrants are permitted to flood the country, thus irrevocably shifting the demographics in favor of the destroyers. The destroyers control all the powerful institutions. Those on the receiving end of the destruction are--as part of the effort--the recipients of non-stop propaganda against them, denigrating them and representing them as morons and bigots.
   If the left were urging the right to enter into a free and open discussion about cultural change, that would be one thing--I favor such discussions. But that's not what's happening. Rather, the left is engaged in a full-court press to force even its most recent, most outlandish, most implausible whims onto everyone else. If the right is talking about violent backlash against this, I may not agree...but I am beginning to understand.

The Snowflakes Are Triggered

facepalm
   How many times is the NYT going to run the same op-ed?
This time it's titled "Racists Are Recruiting Your White Sons," and it's by a Joanna Schroeder...but it's merely superficially different from its many previous iterations.
   There's no sense refuting it in detail--it's bullshit like all the rest. I mean, there's no doubt that some people, including some people online, are racists, and if your kid falls in with them, he might get sucked into it. Nobody thinks that racism isn't a problem; but that's an old piece of knowledge. Screechy snowflake triggering is a relatively new phenomenon. It was easy for my parents to keep me away from racism--and there was a lot more of it around then. It was easy because it's easy to explain what's wrong with it. And a word to the wise is typically sufficient. There was no need to resort to this kind of mindless, irrational squealing. You don't have to become an equal and opposite idiot to combat idiocy. In fact, of course, it's counterproductive.
   One of the ideas I wanted to defend when I started this blog was: you can be a liberal without being an idiot about it. I'm starting to wonder whether I was right. Perhaps liberalism inevitably devolves into this kind of laughable progressive cultism--or worse. I hope not. And I doubt it. But I'm less sure than I used to be.
Read more »

We're Screwed

I was just reflecting on Trump and the Dems.
My God. We are so screwed.
I keep saying this, but it's one of the craziest pieces of this extremely crazy picture: basically everyone I know sees the crazy of Trump--and even exaggerates it. God knows why. But they're all virtually immune to the approximately equal and opposite crazy of the other side. It's like it simply doesn't bother them--or doesn't even show up on their radar screens. Men are women, the world will end in 12 years (or whatever) and all the rest of the Green New Deal nonsense, gun confiscation, socialism, take away private health insurance, reparations of innumerable different kinds...JFC... Any objective assessment of that panoply of insanity makes Trump look pretty damn good by comparison. Maybe not better...but much, much less bad. Ok....probably better. But anyway: if not a lot less bad, then you just simply are not paying attention. His policy positions are simply objectively less crazy than those of the Dems. The question is: better a loose cannon with relatively sane policies? Or someone with the right manners and demeanor...but policies from Mars?
I just don't see how anyone can say that it's an obvious choice.

"Drip, Drip, Drip Of Revelations Damages Trump"

This guy has no business being within 1000 miles of the Oval Office.

Title IX Follies: Is Yale More Dangerous Than Detroit?

Yeah...sure it is.

Antifa Attacks Cops And Trump Rally-Goers?

Is this true? It would be entirely unsurprising--in fact, par for the course. Leftist violence against non-leftists has become fairly routine--and against Trump supporters in particular. 

   I find no mention of this outside conservative sites.

   One would expect an objective media to report on it.

   There was plenty of hyperventilation about "Oath Keepers" escorting rally-goers in order to protect them from violence, but there's basically no coverage of the actual violence--which, again, has become routine--against rally-goers.

   The only way I know to figure things out under conditions of uncertainty such as our current ones is to take hold of as many clear cases/issues/etc. as possible, think about them carefully, and take them seriously. There is, of course, politically-motivated violence on the right--and of a much, much deadlier variety. However, it does matter that those are lone nuts. That means that, though that violence is more deadly, it's less informative about the right than left-wing violence is about the left. The violence on the left is not conducted by lone nuts, but by a loosely-organized group that has basically become the Blackshirts of progressivism. They are very open about being against the Constitution and against the U.S. They use violence routinely as a political tactic. The media and the rest of the left ignore them and even actively defend them. This is one of those clear things on which, I believe, one has to seize. There's no systematic use of suppressive political violence on the right. It's become a major component of the left. And the broader left is to some extent in favor of it and to some extent insufficiently against it to bestir itself to object. If this were anomalous, we might be more skeptical about how indicative it is of attitudes and principles on the left. But it isn't.. It's in accordance with ideas that are ascendant on the political left, and it's in some sense just the most physical expression of a now-common leftist view that non-leftists should be punished by whatever means are available. Ruin their reputations via social media, ban them from speaking, chase them out of restaurants, get them fired, falsely accuse them of "hate crimes"...it simply can't be seen as surprising that beat them up is taken to be another viable option. 

  If right-wing groups were beating progressives coming out of Warren rallies, it would be reported absolutely everywhere, absolutely all of the time. That's simply undeniable.

"The Biden Boomarang"

Via Instapundit, there's this.

   As usual, the right and the left both seem to think that it's all terribly obvious--but what's obviously true to one side is obviously false to the other.

   It seems to me that Trump's shittiness is obvious. He's unpresidential in the extreme--antipresidential, in fact, is more like it. He's just awful. It's head-spinning that he is, in some sense, the most powerful person in the world. 

   But that does nothing to answer questions about Bidengate. That I do not understand. It sounds crooked as hell. But perhaps it's all so common that it's not really a big deal. I simply don't know.

   On top of that, there's the problem that's all too familiar by now: conservative news sites are filled with confident arguments to the effect that the Bidens are dirty. The prestige media, which is extremely left-biased, seems to basically be ignoring that part of the story. Either the right-leaning media is nuts or the bias of the left-leaning media is leading it to keep half of the story under wraps. Given that the right was right about Rusiagate and the left was wrong, I don't find it at all implausible that we're seeing a repeat of that. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Is Trump Losing It?

This stuff from the Minnesota rally seems to be another notch or two below his normally low bar. You really just cannot have a president saying this kind of thing. It's not even up for debate. 'Unpresidential' isn't even close to being a sufficiently strong term for it.
I'd say he's losing it, but I'm not sure he ever had it.
My God we are so screwed.

Using "Collaged Relational Autoethnography" To Something Something Something "Queer Worldmaking"

That is to say: bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit.
I can't believe that "Text And Performance Quarterly" would...no, wait... Of course it would.
(via NRPR)

Like Everything Else, This Ginormous Early Blizzard Is, Undoubtedly, Also A SignOf Global Warming

As would less rain, more rain, higher temps, lower temps... Years of fewer, weaker hurricanes didn't count, of course...but one year with several big ones...obviously global warming.
Honestly, how can people fall for this stuff? I mean...it could be true...but the public case they make for it is just stupid.

Airstrip One Nanny State Now Has A Crankier Nanny

Put down that burger, Fatty McButterpants.
It's time to enwoken your goddamn food.

Ridiculous Straw Man Tweet By NARAL; Sick Burn Response

Brutal.
I remain basically a libertarian about abortion. What I don't buy anymore is the enthusiastic pro-abortion rhetoric of the left.
Yeesh...and that "women are people" nonsense--as if anyone disagreed. Anyone who was going to read that tweet, anyway. That pretense that women are somehow under siege in the U.S... What self-indulgent nonsense.

The Media Scramble The Jets For Elizabeth Warren's Lies

This is the road to perdition: it's always possible to spin and nip and tuck and lean and qualify and distract and dismiss. The media don't have to outright lie for the left--though they often do. It's always possible to drag your heels when any revelations drag you rightward. And to throw your weight behind any revelations that go to the left.

Extinction Rebellion: "A Scarlett-CostumedDeath Cult"

Jesus Christ.

Lefties Suddenly Discover China is Asshoe

I actually remember the Cold War, kiddies.
I've always thought that China was creepier and eviler than the USSR/Russia. Well, post-Stalin, anyway. I thought Clinton was a dumbass for wanting improved relations. But I basically gave up on all this because...well...everybody else has been acting, for decades now, like China was a normal country.
See, I think that a totalitarian state that wants to trade with us is, well, a totalitarian state. I did let myself be lulled into gradually ignoring how terrible those m***er f****ers are...but now hating China seems to be "trending" (stupid f***ing word). Glad to see it. Count me in.

Hirsanyi: Hey, Congress, Take Back Your War Powers

I've basically given up on this one.

Dreher: Trump Fatigue

I'm inclined to agree with everything here--especially the exhaustion attendant on a Trump presidency, and the shamefulness of abandoning the Kurds.
If--not wishing anything bad on the notorious RBG--Trump could get another SCOTUS appointment, it might even be worth four years of the blue cult to be rid of this jackass.

Turley: Dems On Shaky Impeachment Ground; Trump Helps Them Out

   The White House continued along its ill-considered strategy of refusing to cooperate in an impeachment inquiry. I have previously written that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a fundamental error in not securing a vote of the House to commence an impeachment investigation. However, the letter issued by the White House counsel further undermines the case for executive privilege arguments and could reinforce obstruction allegations in any final articles of impeachment.
   The letter rightfully raises concerns over the lack of a House vote of the body and the secrecy of proceedings. The Democrats have limited Republicans in their effort to question witnesses and secure material. However, that is not a legitimate basis for refusing to cooperate or supply clearly material evidence.
   The letter emphasizes a lack of due process in the proceedings. The Constitution does not guarantee such rights as confrontation. Indeed, it does not expressly require anything other than a vote of the House on impeachment and a majority threshold for any referral of the matter to the Senate for trial.
   Once again, past impeachments (like the one that I handled) have allowed for witness examinations and some adversarial process. That should be the case here. There is clearly an effort by Democrats to prevent serious questioning of witnesses by Republican members. That is not a good practice and undermines the impeachment investigation.
   However, none of that justifies the position of the White House. This is a constitutional function of the highest order for Congress. There is a legitimate basis for congressional investigation under both its oversight and impeachment authority. If proven, these allegations of self-dealing could be a basis for articles of impeachment. A President cannot simply pick up his marbles and leave the game because he does not like the other players. A refusal to cooperate with a constitutionally mandated process can itself be an abuse of power. 

Trump "Civil War" Tweet (?)

I've been averting my eyes from this, because it sounded so insane.
I blew up when I heard about it, and thought, basically, THIS IS THE END FOR DRUMPPFFF!!!
I mean...threatening civil war if he's impeached???
Yeah, of course that's not at all what he did.
He quoted someone else saying that his impeachment would cause a "civil-war-like" "fracture."
Listen: THE POTUS SHOULD NEVER SAY ANYTHING EVEN A LITTLE BIT LIKE THIS, EVER.
It's appalling.
But...as per usual...it was so blown out of proportion and intentionally distorted by the anti-Trump, progressive media, that, when I finally could stand to take an actual look at it...it didn't really seem all that bad by comparison to the manufactured myth.
Still bad.
Still very bad.
But the progressive media simply can't help itself. It repeatedly reminds me how horrible the alternative is.
Though I guess you might say: we're stuck with the craptastic progressive media no matter what we do...but Trump...we can get rid of him...
There's some kind of ridiculous error there, but I can't see what it is off the top of my head.

Facts Are Sexist

If you want to know whether Warren is telling the truth about being fired for being pregnant, you're a bigot, bigot.
This is the contemporary left in a nutshell. In short: facts are racist.

The NBA Bends The Knee To China While Giving The Finger To America

Insist that dudes use the dude's can: MORAL EQUIVALENT OF GENOCIDE; NO NBA FOR YOU.

Totalitarian actually genocidal megastate seeking to crush grassroots opposition: forgive him for he knows not what he tweets.

Look, I'm beginning to think that I may not be the crazy one here.

That's the really scary thing.

Behold, The Progressive Left

This dude kept his temper pretty well, I'd say.

"Appropriating" "Gender"

link
If progressivism were even minimally coherent, it would, in fact, be forced to complain about "gender appropriation."

DF-17: "Not Exactly A Game-Changer"

link

The ChiComs Own Us

I still have not been able to find what Daryl Morey actually said.
Also, the bleeding-heart social justice crowd doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about HK.
Typical of that lot.

The Trayvon Hoax

Forgot to mention I finished it.
Mostly it focuses on the--astonishing--claim that the girl who took the witness stand in the trial, claiming to be Martin's semi-gf, Diamond Eugene, was actually her half-sister, Rachel Jeantel. As Gilbert notes, this would have been easy enough for the news organizations to discover--if they'd cared. Instead, they were eagerly assisting a cast of shady characters who were out to screw Zimmerman and turn the case to progressive ends.
   The tale of dishonest, politically-motivated shenanigans was of more interest to me than the details of how Gilbert tracked down Diamond Eugene--but there are enough details about the former to make the book interesting.
   The real takeaway for me was that--as I had ultimately concluded--Zimmerman obviously was/is innocent, and Martin was the aggressor. Furthermore, he inflicted fairly serious injuries on Zimmerman. Martin was bigger than Zimmerman, much older and bigger than the picture the media chose to use (which intentionally made him look younger and smaller than he was at the time of the incident), and very accustomed to fighting. Also: quite into drugs and guns. Even the "skittles and iced tea" part of the story was false--with the actual details--unflattering to Martin--left out. There was enough evidence to figure out Martin's innocence even without the clear, eyewitness testimony that should have made the case open-and-shut--but which was obscured and downplayed by the media.
   Anyway, I say it's probably worth a read.

If Your View Promptly Descends Into A Hell Of Conflicting Insane Claims, It May Be Time To STOP AND ACTUALLY THINK ABOUT THE DAMN THING

You're either with the Mean Green Tween or you aren't.
If you aren't, that's climatecrime, bigot; it's the guillotine for you.
If you are, that's white supremacy, bigot; it's the guillotine for you.
(via InstaGlenn)

What The First "Nonbinary" American Wants The Supreme Court To Know About Transgenderism

This was all obvious at the beginning. Well, not the autogynephila part. That was an actual discovery of psychology.
   But even the most minimal thought about these issues leads immediately to the recognition that no males are women and no females are men--and no amount of feeling unhappy about your sex can change that. Feeling not-at-home in your body is unfortunate, and generally deserving of compassion (though often: this sort of thing is used as a weapon to terrorize non-progressives). But feeling as if you're x doesn't make you x. If you're born male, you'll die male--barring some amazing breakthrough in medical technology in the future.
   In fact, it's not even accurate to say that "even the most minimal thought" reveals this stuff. It's more accurate to say: without a truly extraordinary amount of anti-thought, it's all entirely obvious. Only a massive brainwashing initiative, aided by the airtight political groupthink of the progressive left could possibly lead someone to believe that one can change one's sex--let alone by merely saying it's so, or feeling it's so, or dressing differently.
   Look, their support of this tangle of sophistries and nonsense alone is sufficient to make the Dems, in their current form, unsupportable. For all the insanities pedaled by the right in my lifetime--and they've been legion--it's never advanced a single idea as patently absurd as transgender mythology. How a major party in the U.S. can declare that some men are women...and that anyone who doubts it is the moral equivalent of a racist...is entirely beyond me. And how so many people can look right at this and treat it as some kind of normal difference of opinion...I just can't fathom it. Believing in magical sex-transmogrification is not some small, inconsequential thing. Hell, it's actually more rational to believe in actually magic magic than it is to believe in this kind of weird word-magic (or social magic). We know that words (and social interactions) don't have this kind of power. Saying that x simply doesn't make it that x. This is just about the most basic fact about the universe, confirmed at every instant, by our every interaction with reality.
   How is that, with a bunch of people claiming that night is day...and shrieking that I'm a racist (or whatever) for disagreeing...somehow I'm the weird one?

Robert W. Merry: "Trump Is Blowing It"

This is very close to my current view.
Perhaps the most important bit:

   Yes, the Donald Trump haters are blowing the Ukraine story out of proportion in their frenzied effort to drive him from office just months before Election Day—or at least to humiliate him and his followers with a House impeachment.
   And, yes, many of those same partisans carried out a years-long project to destroy his presidency with that so-called Russiagate investigation, which turned out to be based on bogus suspicions and allegations. And, yes, Trump is correct in his complaint that no president has ever before been subjected to the kind of relentless political assault that he has endured from the nation’s political, governmental, and cultural establishment.
   But all that misses a fundamental point about American presidential politics—that presidents get the credit for what’s going well in the country and the blame for what’s not going well. And the man most responsible for the current impeachment mess that’s tearing the country apart is Trump himself. His effort to gin up an investigation of his top political rival by a foreign government was so irresponsible, reprehensible, and reckless that he must now own the mess that has ensued from it.
   Do his ill-considered actions rise to the level of a firing offense in our presidential system? In ordinary times, probably not. But these aren’t ordinary times in America. The country is rent by crosscurrents of political passion far more intense and divisive than America has seen probably since the Civil War era. At issue is nothing less than the definition of the nation and what kind of country it will be in the next 20 years and beyond.
   The nation’s elites and their most fervent followers—globalist in outlook, anti-nationalist by instinct, increasingly contemptuous of national borders—want to remake the country through mass immigration, global finance, and a fierce demand for diversity, all enforced through the bludgeon of political correctness and the weapon words deployed in its behalf. Trump’s followers don’t see why they should simply acquiesce in this transformation that seems destined to leave them marginalized and their heritage in shreds. They needed a champion, and nobody throughout the firmament of American politics seemed interested in the job—until Trump.
   But it was a big job, rendered politically dangerous by the ferocious resolve on the part of the elites to continue their transformation project unimpeded. Anyone who got in their way would have to be destroyed, and Trump got in their way.
   That posed a profound challenge. He had to galvanize his natural supporters through rhetoric and initiatives favorable to them while at the same time expanding his base sufficiently to forge a governing coalition. This was no mean feat.
   Consider, as one telling example, the crudity and rawness of Trump’s rhetoric. On the one hand, it served to stir his natural constituency because it denoted a proud defiance toward those coastal elites that have so rankled many heartland Americans in recent decades, particularly on the issue of immigration. But this rhetorical crudity and rawness, if unconstrained, could turn off penumbral voters needed for that governing coalition. Trump’s inability to find the balance here has contributed to his inability to build his base beyond an approval rating hovering at or near 40 percent. No president has ever been reelected with such low numbers.

Trump's awful, but no other conservative/Republican seemed genuinely willing to step up and oppose the trajectory the cultural elite are leading us on. Progressivism has become a kind of antirational, antiliberal, quasi-religious cult. It is pushing a set of policies that are dangerously radical, and that may very well leave the country a smoking ruin 30 years--we just don't know. I'm willing to discuss virtually all of them--but the left isn't talking about discussion. To doubt its dictates is to be a racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic etc. etc. etc. Rational discussion is for fascists. It's talking about immediate implementation. That's why climate apocalypticism and the GND are important parts of the view: all progressive policies must immediately be implemented or we die. No time to discuss. No time to think. Perhaps we should have open borders or something like it. The arguments for such an idea are nontrivial. The downside is that it may lead to destruction of the nation--we just don't know. In such a case, careful thought is required. I don't think it's radical, nor particularly conservative, to insist that we stick with the status quo while we stop and think--rather than simply rolling the dice. And none of that even touches on the progressive drift against the First Amendment, against the Second Amendment, against the Fifth Amendment...

   But Trump's an idiot, and a loudmouth, and a lout. He's only made even minimally considerable because the alternative is very, very dangerous. I think the Democrats have finally found a slapfight they can win against him. Since he's a loon with a big mouth and a Twitter account, they've got the means to make him beat himself. They've been acting crazy, but, like so many people and parties, they have the ability to say insane things with a calm and respectable demeanor. Trump says less-crazy things, but his demeanor is the demeanor of a crazy street-billionaire, ranting and raving at the sky. Most people don't have time for politics; they decide on the basis of demeanor--which is usually a pretty good rule of thumb. And Trump's demeanor could hardly be worse. (Not to say that he doesn't also have substantive failings.)

   Anyway, yeah: Trump is blowing it. Which is exactly what you'd expect from a guy like him. Perhaps the Dems will regain their sanity. I very much doubt it at this point--but it may be our only real hope.

WaPo Poll: 1/2 of Americans Favor Impeachment Inquiry, 1/2 Favor Removal From Office

A WaPo poll + peculiar results ==> not clear what we should make of it.
   You'd expect way more people to want an inquiry than to think we've already got sufficient grounds for removal. Also, numbers have been running against removal and perhaps even against an inquiry, though I can't remember how much of what I've seen on that score.
   Maybe this is a measure of how polarizing this is: answers really just show how many people are pro-Trump and now many anti-. Often, people just take such polls as an opportunity to say yay or boo about the issue or the person.
   Maybe this is the year for a third-party candidate. If the blue cult finally manages to sink Trump (Trump should get the assist in the box score), then we're left with...well...the blue cult. Please...someone else come forward...
   Anyway, not sure whether to put much credence in the poll, not sure how lasting the effect might be. But there's plausible grounds for believing that there's a fire somewhere in Ukrainegate. But on top of that, the cultural superstructure is frantically, monomaniacally pumping out smoke. Trump might be history and might even deserve it. God knows. I want him gone...but my God...the alternative!
   I don't believe Rasmussen poll results...I reckon I maybe ought to treat WaPo polls the same. I just don't know.

#WalkAway: "It Just Exploded"

Via InstaGlenn, yet again: #WalkAway.
It's weird to admit how weird it feels to find myself no longer allied with the Dems. It really does feel a bit like coming to acknowledge, in my teens, that I no longer believed in God.

A New GOP Comes Out Swinging (?)

link
I do not understand what's going on.
   I'm pretty sure, however, that my previous self would have only read about one side of the story.
   I'm also pretty sure that there is another side--that the account being pushed by the (admittedly?) progressive / very-much-left-leaning media is biased.
   I really just want to know what's what. I have no interest in defending Trump overmuch. But I think everyone ought to be able to admit that, thus far, progressive anti-Trumpism has been slapped down hard and justifiably at most points in this trajectory. Ukrainegate seems like, to at least some extent, a kind of continuation of Russiagate. I believe it's reasonable to think that this is an ongoing effort to torpedo Trump, and that every time one torpedo turns out to be a dud, another is loaded up and loosed. (Counterpoint: Trump himself seems to be manufacturing the torpedoes...)
   When it becomes nearly impossible for an ordinary person to understand the details of each new assault, I believe it becomes more rational to look at the overall pattern and take that into account.
   I'm inclined to think that what Trump was initially reported to have said was prima facie of great concern (at least to non-experts). But, as per usual, it's turned out that the initial story contained lies and other inaccuracies--e.g. the absolutely indefensible editing of the Ukrainian phone-call transcript. And progressives seem to be sticking to those falsehoods even after they've been clearly revealed to be such.
   I remain extremely concerned about Trump. Extremely. But facts matter. And, more and more, I'm inclined to take seriously the charge that much of what we're seeing is the progressive cultural superstructure refusing to accept the outcome of the 2016 election. (There's a sense in which I can't blame them--but that only goes so far.)
   That's of enough of a concern on its own. It becomes a matter of even greater concern given that the contemporary Democratic party has lurched hard to the left. I believe it's saying things and taking positions that are (as it were) so far out in left field that they make Trump's horrifying outlandishness seem almost acceptable by comparison. To repeat myself: the Green New Deal alone is so divorced from anything resembling reality--and dishonest--that it basically makes any party that has accepted it an unviable option. And that's merely one of several extremely radical and completely unacceptable planks in their emerging platform. When any party has lurched so hard to either side, one should expect that it will become untenable.
   I don't see a winning move for our republic in all of this. Our only option at this point, I believe, is to minimize the likely damage. I hope that changes in the next year. But I don't see how we can expect it to.
   For now, I'm just trying to take up something like an objective position from which to view and assess Ukrainegate. Speaking for myself, however, I feel overwhelmed by it and don't really understand it.

Andrew Marantz: "Free Speech Is Killing Us"

sigh
This is in the now-popular genre I'm for free speech but..., aka I'm for free speech...but not really...
 My favorite:

“We need to protect the rights of speakers,” John A. Powell, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told me, “but what about protecting everyone else?” Mr. Powell was the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and he represented the Ku Klux Klan in federal court. “Racists should have rights,” he explained. “I also know, being black and having black relatives, what it means to have a cross burned on your lawn. It makes no sense for the law to be concerned about one and ignore the other.”

Well, professor Polwell, UC-Berkeley, former legal director of the ACLU*, I'd like to introduce you to a little decision we like to call Virginia v. Black. Burning a cross on your lawn is a "true threat," and and an act of harassment. You can have a cross burning club, and burn crosses to your heart's content as an "expression of shared ideology." But you can't do so on somebody else's lawn as an act of intimidation. A particularly bad example to use as one of this article's flagship examples, as First Amendment jurisprudence gets this case exactly right.
   And: anyone who thinks that Milo Yiannopolous is so dangerous that he ought to be banned from all social media is a dangerous, antiliberal totalitarian.
   This is exactly what you find when you scratch one of these "I'm for free speech but..." types. The first clause is mere defensive, throw-away preface. The substance is always in the ellipses, and it always shows that the prefatory statement simply isn't true.



* Of course the ACLU is no longer the ACLU, former bastion of liberalism. Now it's just another part of the antiliberal progressive Borg.

Destroying Someone's Career With False Accusations Of Prejudice Can Be Done Pretty Casually; Deciding to Retract...Well...That Takes Time And Caution...

link

"Stop, Just Stop" Indeed

facepalm

Trump "Publicly Calls On China To Investigate The Bindens"

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Jebus, what a maroon.
The headline is from the WaPo, but since I won't give that organization money anymore, it wasn't letting me even get past the front page.
He didn't exactly "call on" China to open an investigation...but it was damn close. And whatever it was, it was damn stupid and possibly political suicide.
I mean my God...what is going on? The most unqualified president of all time get elected...in the race to the bottom, the GOP seemed to have won an all-time, unbeatable victory. Then the Dems somehow shoot ahead by--somehow--finding a pack of hard-left crazies that are even crazier than him! In the aforementioned race, they seem unbeatable!
But Trump then, of his own free will, pulls victory from the jaws of defeat by--almost--asking China to investigate his political enemies! Brilliant! A master-stroke!
Dems: Nobody can possibly be crazier than us!!!
Trump: Hold my diet Coke...

Trump and "Treason"

I've noticed that he's been using the T word...that's exactly the kind of thing that I'd expect from him (under such circumstances)...and, IMO, exactly the kind of thing that indicates his unfitness for office.
   OTOH, his opponents have been using it on him for years.
   (Incidentally: none of these people seem to know what treason is.)
   Also: Trump's opponents aren't the president.
   They are permitted to say idiotic, psycho things about him.
   He is the president, and, as such, is not permitted to say idiotic, psycho things about anybody.
   They're largely--though by no means entirely--a pretty sorry and frothy lot. The T people, that is--the ones who think that their disapproval and fever dreams of collusion = treason. But such nutbaggery can't be what sets the bar. If you're anywhere near as crazy as the contemporary vocal left, ya really can't be president. And Trump is, in his own, slightly different, way, somewhere in that vicinity of dumbassery. The crazy left has provoked and provoked and provoked him--maybe worse, even, than the crazy right provoked Obama. Though Trump largely brings it upon himself, and Obama absolutely did not. Obama just kept on keepin' on, level of head and even of keel. Trump lost what little shit he had. Or may be losing it, anyway. God knows what'll happen if the left keeps the crazy turned up to 11. They may actually be spittle-flecked enough to turn Trump into the fascistic strongman of their fever dreams...
   Start with a pretty shitty guy who absolutely cannot be president. Plus: an insane political cult that has control of the culture. Give actual people the former as the only way of putting the brakes on the latter. So: the shitty guy becomes the prez. Which he absolutely cannot be allowed to do. This adds to the picture the complete loss of shit by the cult...and it then ramps up its ever-present shrieking of "racist!" and "fascist!" and "treason!" Eventually the shitty guy, being shitty, does one shitty thing too many, and the cult makes a push to remove him from office. Sorry, I mean: yet another push to remove him from office. What will the shitty guy do? Well...he's really shitty...and has no business there...and he's being pushed toward the ledge...and could just fall over it and act like an actual fascist. After all--he's shitty and he's being treated shittily. In large part (though not by any means entirely) insanely and unfairly.  And that's a dangerous, volatile combination.
   This is madness.
   Trump has no business being within a thousand miles of the Oval Office, as I may have mentioned, and he's proven that over and over again. The Dems and the left, however, are, IMO and once again, showing themselves to be approximately equally qualified. In many ways better--but in many ways much, much worse.
   What's scary to me is that so many people in my world radically exaggerate the--genuine, actual, in-no-goddamn-need-of-exaggeration--awfulness of Trump, while not only being completely goddamn oblivious to the insanity of the blue team...but actually thinking they're fucking good.
   This is a scary goddamn situation, oh my countryfolk. It's bad to say things like "this is Hitler vs. the Politburo," even as an obvious exaggeration...but...well...certainly at least Klingons vs. Romulans. Or the Borg. Or something.
   I'd feel a lot better if there were any indication in the cult's publications, the NYT, WaPo, and the rest, that the cult is a cult. And crazy as a goddamn pack of bedbugs... But the bedbugs are running the asylum. Or whatever. And printing the newspapers. So I don't really see that happening.
   Oh well, stay tuned. I see no even possible good outcome anywhere in sight.
   Though it's imperative to remember that I have no goddamn idea what I'm talking about.

Another Hate-Crime Hoax

Some on the right like to say:  the demand for racism outstrips the supply.
Here's some more empirical evidence for that point.
   If we really cared to find out, this stuff should be amenable to empirical investigation. Though I'm currently horrified by the frothy antiliberalism of the progressive/extremist left--well, I've always been horrified by the frothy antiliberalism of the extremist (Orwellian) left...it's just that it's no longer a fringe phenomenon. That left is the left now. Or so it seems.
   But anyway: though I'm currently horrified by the crazy antiliberalism that's gripped the left, and so my impressionistic judgments can't be trusted, I do tend to read stuff toward both ends of the spectrum. My impression is that, when I was younger, the left was far more level-headed and objective about racism in the U.S. Currently, however--as with so many things--its beliefs seem philosophical, quasi-religious, unverifiable/unfalsifiable articles of faith. The right seems to view racism through a clearer lens.
   One view is that it's the very fact that the demand exceeds the supply that's caused the left to retreat to such nearly-superstitious conspiracy theories about "systemic racism" and "white privilege." It's clearly a factor in the rise of such racial hate-crime hoaxes.
   Anyway, these questions are empirical ones--or they'd better be, anyway. If we could trust the social sciences to give it to us straight...ehhh...might as well stop right there, I reckon...