Democrats, Russians and the FBI

From the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:

It turns out that Russia has sown distrust in the U.S. political system—aided and abetted by the Democratic Party, and perhaps the FBI. This is an about-face from the dominant media narrative of the last year, and it requires a full investigation.

The Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee jointly paid for that infamous “dossier” full of Russian disinformation against Donald Trump. They filtered the payments through a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie), which hired the opposition-research hit men at Fusion GPS. Fusion in turn tapped a former British spook, Christopher Steele, to compile the allegations, which are based largely on anonymous, Kremlin-connected sources.

Strip out the middlemen, and it appears that Democrats paid for Russians to compile wild allegations about a U.S. presidential candidate. Did someone say “collusion”?

This news is all the more explosive because the DNC and Clinton campaign hid their role, even amid the media furor after BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier in January. Reporters are now saying that Clinton campaign officials lied to them about their role in the dossier. Current DNC Chair Tom Perez and former Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz deny knowing about the dossier arrangement, but someone must have known.

Perhaps this explains why Congressional Democrats have been keen to protect Fusion from answering dossier questions—disrupting hearings, protesting subpoenas and deriding Republican investigators. Two of Fusion’s cofounders invoked their Fifth Amendment rights last week rather than answer House Intelligence Committee questions, and Fusion filed a federal lawsuit on Friday to block committee subpoenas of its bank records.

The more troubling question is whether the FBI played a role, even if inadvertently, in assisting a Russian disinformation campaign. We know the agency possessed the dossier in 2016, and according to media reports it debated paying Mr. Steele to continue his work in the runup to the election. This occurred while former FBI Director James Comey was ramping up his probe into supposed ties between the Trump campaign and Russians.

Two pertinent questions: Did the dossier trigger the FBI probe of the Trump campaign, and did Mr. Comey or his agents use it as evidence to seek wiretapping approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Trump campaign aides?

Congressional investigators need to focus on the FBI’s role, and House Speaker Paul Ryan was correct Wednesday to insist that the bureau comply with Congress’s document demands “immediately.” Mr. Sessions has recused himself from the Justice Department’s Russia probe, but he and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein can still insist on transparency. Mr. Ryan should also reinstall Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes as lead on the Russia investigation, since it appears the Democratic accusations against him were aimed in part at throwing him off the Fusion trail.

All of this also raises questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The Fusion news means the FBI’s role in Russia’s election interference must now be investigated—even as the FBI and Justice insist that Mr. Mueller’s probe prevents them from cooperating with Congressional investigators.

Mr. Mueller is a former FBI director, and for years he worked closely with Mr. Comey. It is no slur against Mr. Mueller’s integrity to say that he lacks the critical distance to conduct a credible probe of the bureau he ran for a dozen years. He could best serve the country by resigning to prevent further political turmoil over that conflict of interest.

The American public deserves a full accounting of the scope and nature of Russian meddling in American democracy, and that means following the trail of the Steele dossier as much as it does the meetings of Trump campaign officials.

Five women accuse journalist and 'Game Change' co-author Mark Halperin of sexual harassment

OK then.

O'Keefe Responds to "Not a Journalist" claim from NYT's Dean Baquet

Here Are The 10 Most Important Reported Claims About The Steele Dossier On Russia

Mollie Hemingway in The Federalist.

I have provided the headings. It's worth reading the whole thing.

Last night the Washington Post reported that the infamous “Russia dossier” was partly funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier’s inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims about Donald Trump provided the framework for mainstream media treatment of the president for much of the last year and fueled multiple investigations. Here are 10 things to keep in mind about the dossier.

1) Russian officials were sources of key claims in dossier

2) No, the Russian dossier was not initially funded by Republicans

3) The dossier is chock full of discredited information

4) The dossier was used as a basis for wiretaps on American citizens

5) The FBI also paid for the dossier

6) Dossier publisher Fusion GPS works with shady outfits

7) Fusion GPS’ ties to media are problematic

8) Jim Comey personally briefed Trump on the dossier, shortly before CNN reported it

9) Mueller investigation spurred by dossier and illegal leaks from intelligence operatives about Trump

10) The Steele dossier was a Clinton/DNC-funded operation supported by the FBI and influenced heavily by Russian operatives in the Kremlin

Glenn Reynolds:

HE WAS JUST AHEAD OF THE STORY: Less than one week ago, Chris Cilizza incredulously wrote, “Donald Trump just suggested the FBI, Democrats and Russia might all be co-conspirators.”

And now. . . .

This Is A Lemon

Integrity Lost: The Journalism Chronicles

Michael Goodwin was weaned on Abe Rosenthal’s New York Times, rising to City Hall Bureau Chief before becoming Executive Editor of the Daily News and, now, chief political columnist for the New York Post. He’s been around, so when he says this, it comes from experience:

It’s not exactly breaking news that most journalists lean left. I used to do that myself. I grew up at The New York Times, so I’m familiar with the species. For most of the media, bias grew out of the social revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Fueled by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the media jumped on the anti-authority bandwagon writ large. The deal was sealed with Watergate, when journalism was viewed as more trusted than government—and far more exciting and glamorous. Think Robert Redford in All the President’s Men. Ever since, young people became journalists because they wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, find a Deep Throat, and bring down a president. Of course, most of them only wanted to bring down a Republican president. That’s because liberalism is baked into the journalism cake.

This is the sort of statement that really needs context, as the left-leaning of the Nixon era wasn’t the same left as today. There were similarities, of course, in that Nixon was viewed as inherently evil and must be taken down. The lives of young men in Viet Nam depended on it, so the platitudes were born.

During the years I spent teaching at the Columbia University School of Journalism, I often found myself telling my students that the job of the reporter was “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I’m not even sure where I first heard that line, but it still captures the way most journalists think about what they do. Translate the first part of that compassionate-sounding idea into the daily decisions about what makes news, and it is easy to fall into the habit of thinking that every person afflicted by something is entitled to help. Or, as liberals like to say, “Government is what we do together.” From there, it’s a short drive to the conclusion that every problem has a government solution.

So journalists were always advocates, forfeiting integrity for the good of the afflicted at the expense of the comfortable? Not quite.

But I was still shocked at what happened. This was not naïve liberalism run amok. This was a whole new approach to politics. No one in modern times had seen anything like it.

To anyone paying attention, this conclusion couldn’t be avoided. It wasn’t entirely clear what was different, the intensity, the constancy, the pervasiveness, the inclusion of an adjective before every noun, an adverb before every verb, but no story went unmolested.

Every story was an opinion masquerading as news, and every opinion ran in the same direction—toward Clinton and away from Trump.

For the most part, I blame The New York Times and The Washington Post for causing this breakdown. The two leading liberal newspapers were trying to top each other in their demonization of Trump and his supporters. They set the tone, and most of the rest of the media followed like lemmings.

During the campaign, every op-ed in the New York Times included the word “Trump” in the title. If it was a story about cute little birds, it would include a paragraph about how Trump would probably like to bite their adorable heads off. But those were op-eds. What about news?

To the age-old elements of who, what, when, where, and why, he added the reporter’s opinion. Now the floodgates were open, and virtually every so-called news article reflected a clear bias against Trump. Stories, photos, headlines, placement in the paper—all the tools that writers and editors have—were summoned to the battle. The goal was to pick the next president.

Where the old New York Times Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal would can a reporter who was conflicted or couldn’t overcome his feelings to stick to the facts, Dean Baquet gave his reporters permission to serve the cause.

Of the daily struggle for fairness, Baquet had this to say: “I think that Trump has ended that struggle. . . . We now say stuff. We fact check him. We write it more powerfully that [what he says is] false.”

Baquet was being too modest. Trump was challenging, sure, but it was Baquet who changed journalism. He’s the one who decided that the standards of fairness and nonpartisanship could be abandoned without consequence.

I can hear you muttering, “But he IS literally Hitler!!!” So why not report the facts and let the reader draw that conclusion rather than force-feed the reader the conclusion by twisting the story so that no one could possibly reach any other? Color the verbiage, omit the factual detail that might undermine the inexorable conclusion and, boom, you’ve done your duty as an advocate for truth and justice. All it cost was your integrity.

Goodwin offers three ways in which journalism could recapture its status as a legitimate source of news.

The mismatch between the mainstream media and the public’s sensibilities means there is a vast untapped market for news and views that are not now represented. To realize that potential, we only need three ingredients, and we already have them: first, free speech; second, capitalism and free markets; and the third ingredient is you, the consumers of news.

Goodwin’s third ingredient, dependent on the other two, is for readers to support the media it likes.

As the great writer and thinker Midge Decter once put it, “You have to join the side you’re on.” It’s no secret that newspapers and magazines are losing readers and money and shedding staff. Some of them are good newspapers. Some of them are good magazines. There are also many wonderful, thoughtful, small publications and websites that exist on a shoestring. Don’t let them die. Subscribe or contribute to those you enjoy.

Feel free to hit the tip jar on the right (and I appreciate your support), but frankly, this strikes me as the problem more than the solution. It’s not about what we “like,” which is the bubble that confirms beliefs and desired outcomes. It’s about what’s real, even if we don’t.

The evil of advocacy journalism, masquerading as news reporting, has been the subject of my invective for a while. But so too has the point that integrity, once lost, cannot be regained. Once the news media has joined a team, it can’t be trusted again to be the honest broker of news. That isn’t a problem so easily solved, and it may not be fixable at all.

Women’s March Promoted Russian Propaganda

You've probably scoffed at the crazies who claim that all those Left wing movements and rallies are a "Communist Plot."

They're not.

They're actually a Russian plot.

Really.

A popular Instagram account that promoted a militant form of feminism was actually run by Russian operatives, who successfully fooled Women’s March organizers into sharing their content.

The account, which operated under the handle @feminism_tag on Instagram, had tens of thousands of followers.

An investigation into the Kremlin’s cyber operations by Russian media outlet RBC named the account, which has since been deleted from Instagram, as among those operated by the Russians.

The account promoted the view, popular among left-wing feminists, that women don’t have equal rights in America. “We fight to achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women!” the account’s description read.

One post read: “I would rather be the ‘obnoxious feminist girl’ than be complicit in my own dehumanization.”

Another post showed a young, long-haired child holding a sign that read: “I’m the SCARY transgender person the media WARNED you about.”

Archived versions of the account show it had at least 46,000 followers as of March 2017.

The account’s posts were often shared on Facebook.

One post that was shared by Women’s March’s South Carolina branch showed a picture of a girl holding a sign that read: “I need feminism because my 12-year-old sisters already cares about how much she eats.”

The Women’s March page credited the Russian propaganda account for the post, which is still live on Facebook.

The Russians were not trying to get Trump elected; they were trying to get Americans at each other's throats. And when "Hillary The Inevitable" lost the election, the Democrats went for it. They marched to the tune of the Russian drummer. 

The Russians succeeded.   You won't find this in the Washington Post.

Read the whole thing.

Iowahawk: Heart of Redness

DAY ONE: BASE CAMP, IOWA CITY

Mission: bring back Von Drehle.

The words echo in my mind as I peer out the frost-framed window of 'Pretense,' a moderately priced new-American bistro on the edge of campus. My eyes follow clusters of students, shoulders hunched against the cold, criss-crossing the snowy Pentacrest like the exasperating strokes of a de Koonig canvas.

We all have a mission, I thought. For those faceless students: diversity seminars, Nam Jun Paik film retrospectives at the Union, maybe Dollar Pitcher Nite at the Airliner. For me: Von Drehle.

It - or rather, he - is the mission that has brought me to this dismal and lonely outpost on the edge of reason. Tomorrow I will make the dangerous trek north on Dubuque Street to Exit 242, merge into the river of semi-trailers on Interstate 80, and head west into the great red unknown between here and Boulder.

Read the whole thing.

Andrew Klavan: "Trump's a Big Mouth; Journalists are Villains"

As Trump-loving readers of this blog have frequently complained, I am not always a fan of Donald Trump's personal style. I don't like bullies and I prefer a president who thinks before he opens his mouth. I do, on the other hand, very much like many of the things Trump has accomplished: the great judicial nominations, the taming of the regulatory state, the restoration of the rule of law at the border, leaving the silly Paris accord, the annihilation of ISIS, the attempts to hurry the implosion of Obamacare by suspending utterly illegal payments to insurance companies, calling out the NFL on its lack of patriotism, and calling out the media on a leftward bias that now amounts to simple malfeasance and corruption. That's an awful lot of good stuff, and it surely makes up for the big mouthery.

Intellectual Froglegs

DER SPIEGEL interviews the new Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz

SPIEGEL: Mr. Kurz, you're 31 years old and poised to become the new Austrian chancellor. Do you sometimes spook yourself?

Kurz: Not in the least. I am aware of the responsibility I am taking on. Things have developed very quickly for me in recent years, but they didn't happen from one day to the next. I have more than six years of experience in government. I took the decision to run as a candidate very seriously. In May, I decided to change the Austrian People's Party and to start a broad-based movement aimed at changing this country for the better.

SPIEGEL: Can you understand that some people are a little spooked to see such a young man in charge of a country?

Kurz: If that's how the Austrian public thought, they wouldn't have voted for me. Austrians have had a while to get a sense of who I am. Other candidates have been on the political stage for a much briefer period than I. Voters probably were much less familiar with some of the candidates in the German elections, who were previously in Brussels.

SPIEGEL: Do you sometimes wish you had more life experience to bring to your new office?

Kurz: We are who we are. You can't become 30 years older just like that. People who are older have the advantage of more experience. But you don't have to despair just because you're young. If young age is the problem, you can take comfort in the fact that it gets better with each passing day.

SPIEGEL: Your appearance has constantly been written about and commented on. Does that annoy you?

Kurz: I can't say I've noticed it. During the election campaign the focus was on lots of other things, on issues, on campaigning style, on "dirty campaigning" and methods we don't want here in Austria. The way the candidates looked really wasn't a focus.

Read the whole thing.

Feminist meet Muslim

NPR head doesn’t get it even after spending a year going into “Darkest America.”

The former head of NPR, Ken Stern, decided to imitate European explorers who trekked into darkest Africa to discover how the natives lived.  For the head of NPR, Middle America is unexplored territory.   He decided to attend their native festivals, observed their native religious ceremonies, ate their native food.  He even went on a native hunt. 

But let us echo his actual words:

I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show.

He was surprised to find out that the natives were not all headhunting cannibals.

I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.

Attending the natives quaint religious ceremonies he didn’t understand the theological imperatives that brought them together, but he was shocked to discover that hate was not the guiding impulse.

I spent many Sundays in evangelical churches and hung out with 15,000 evangelical youth at the Urbana conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect among thousands of college-age evangelicals, but I certainly didn’t expect the intense discussion of racial equity and refugee issues — how to help them, not how to keep them out — but that is what I got.

He was surprised to find out that the native spear carriers were not mindless killing machines.

None of my new hunting partners fit the lazy caricature of the angry NRA member.

He even found that the natives were upset because the ruling class ignored their needs.

I also spent time in depressed areas of Kentucky and Ohio with workers who felt that their concerns had long fallen on deaf ears and were looking for every opportunity to protest a government and political and media establishment that had left them behind.

Of course, while the natives issues have been ignored (or ridiculed), the ruling class means well.  The people who are currently leading them are terrible people, they’re agitating for change, they’re inappropriate who don’t use the right knives and forks.  And it’s having an unfortunate effect: the rulers are losing the respect which are rightly theirs.

Some may take pleasure in the discomfort of the media, but it is not a good situation for the country to have the media in disrepute and under constant attack. Virtually every significant leader of this nation, from Jefferson on down, has recognized the critical role of an independent press to the orderly functioning of democracy. We should all be worried that more than 65 percent of voters think there is a lot of fake news in the mainstream media and that our major media institutions are seen as creating, not combatting, our growing partisan divide.

 

Some of this loss of reputation stems from effective demagoguery from the right and the left, as well as from our demagogue-in-chief, but the attacks wouldn’t be so successful if our media institutions hadn’t failed us as well.

 

None of this justifies the attacks from President Trump, which are terribly inappropriate coming from the head of government.

Stern believes that the media needs to focus more on the benighted natives, yelling at them in in their own curious language, dominating their discussions, telling them the “right-think” in their tribal events, their religious ceremonies, their governing councils.

You can’t cover America from the Acela corridor, and the media need to get out and be part of the conversations that take place in churches and community centers and town halls.

Whoops.  The Liberal Culture has gone a little too far driving the rest of us away from the things that interest the inhabitants of the Acela corridor.  Having taken over total control of Hollywood, music, the arts, the press, academia and the courts they are absolutely gob smacked to find out that they no longer have the respect - or the attention - of the natives.

BOMBSHELL: The Obama Administration’s Uranium One Scandal

The latest chapter in how the Obama Administration sold out this U.S. ... to the Russians.

Andrew McCarthy:

Let’s put the Uranium One scandal in perspective: The cool half-million bucks the Putin regime funneled to Bill Clinton was five times the amount it spent on those Facebook ads — the ones the media-Democrat complex ludicrously suggests swung the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.

The Facebook-ad buy, which started in June 2015 — before Donald Trump entered the race — was more left-wing agitprop (ads pushing hysteria on racism, immigration, guns, etc.) than electioneering. The Clintons’ own long-time political strategist Mark Penn estimates that just $6,500 went to actual electioneering. (You read that right: 65 hundred dollars.) By contrast, the staggering $500,000 payday from a Kremlin-tied Russian bank for a single speech was part of a multi-million-dollar influence-peddling scheme to enrich the former president and his wife, then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton. At the time, Russia was plotting — successfully — to secure U.S. government approval for its acquisition of Uranium One, and with it, tens of billions of dollars in U.S. uranium reserves.

Here’s the kicker: The Uranium One scandal is not only, or even principally, a Clinton scandal. It is an Obama-administration scandal.

The Clintons were just doing what the Clintons do: cashing in on their “public service.” The Obama administration, with Secretary Clinton at the forefront but hardly alone, was knowingly compromising American national-security interests. The administration green-lighted the transfer of control over one-fifth of American uranium-mining capacity to Russia, a hostile regime — and specifically to Russia’s state-controlled nuclear-energy conglomerate, Rosatom. Worse, at the time the administration approved the transfer, it knew that Rosatom’s American subsidiary was engaged in a lucrative racketeering enterprise that had already committed felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses.

Another take on the Clinton/Russia uranium scandal

This investigation began when Robert Mueller, now investigating the Trump campaign, was the head of the FBI. It was overseen by Rod Rosenstein, who is now Trump’s deputy attorney general and the man responsible for the appointment of a special counsel. It is easy to see how both Trump administration loyalists and uncommitted observers might find these associations suspicious, and why they might turn that now suspicious eye on the Trump-Russia probe.

There is nothing in Tuesday’s bombshell revelation that challenges the validity of the questions being investigated by Robert Mueller’s office. Anyone who wants to undermine the legitimacy of that probe and attack the characters of its principal investigators, though, now has a trove of new ammunition at their disposal. This was entirely a result of the Obama administration’s reckless, ideological pursuit of rapprochement with Moscow and the Clinton family’s negligent rent-seeking. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for looking the other way.

Hillary Clinton and her dwindling cohort of image-makers are engaged in an increasingly desperate effort to save her from posterity’s reproach, but the water is rising up over their knees now. Theirs is a losing battle, and Democrats should resist the temptation to come to her defense. A transparent campaign of emotional manipulation in book form has managed to convince a handful of influential liberals that she is the real victim in all of this. That’s incorrect; they are the victims here. And the Clintons are their tormentors. It’s about time Democrats broke free.

Mueller, Comey and Rosenstein implicated in Russian bribery investigation

All this occurred while Obama was president, and Holder was Attorney General.

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews....

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

And:

This was known early in the Obama administration, but Holder’s Department of Justice hushed up Russia’s crimes and hid the scandal.

Ironies abound: who supervised the Russia investigation? Rod Rosenstein. Who was the FBI director when the Russia probe began in 2009? Robert Mueller. Who was running the FBI when the case ended with a whimper and an apparent cover-up? James Comey. How any of these people can participate with a straight face in an investigation into President Trump’s purportedly nefarious (but, as far as we know, nonexistent) relationship with the Russian regime is beyond me.

This story belongs on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. But it won't be for the same reason that everyone in the press knew that Harvey Weistein was a pervert and a rapist. He was a Democrat and the role of the Press is to provide cover for Democrats.

Green Beret who told Kaepernick to kneel, wants America to heal

Jenny North: Victory Girls

Some people thought that when we found out that it was a Green Beret who convinced Colin Kaepernick not to sit, but to kneel, during the National Anthem, we would all have a change of heart and expose ourselves as hypocrites. Sorry to disappoint you, but No. I don’t care who thought up this stunt, even if the originator is white. Even if he is a decorated war hero. It is a terrible, stupid, insulting protest, and at the very least is ineffective and counterproductive. At worst, it is wildly divisive and destructive to national unity....

Nate Boyer, the Green Beret who thought kneeling was a nice compromise, has good intentions, but he is wrong. He is wrong about how we come together as a nation and he is wrong about the kind of damage this protest is causing. But he is right about a few things:

Simply put, it seems like we just hate each other; and that is far more painful to me than any protest, or demonstration, or rally, or tweet. We’re told to pick a side, there’s a line drawn in the sand “are you with us or against us?” It’s just not who we are, or at least who we’re supposed to be; we’re supposed to be better than that, we’re Americans. This doesn’t even seem to be about right or wrong, but more about right or left.

Did he just now notice how much hate there is? Does he think Colin Kaepernick and Donald Trump started this whole thing? He’s right, there is an enormous amount of hate being spewed, and it is almost entirely coming from the Left. The Right has been under assault for years, but maybe it didn’t register with anybody because Obama’s words sounded so pretty, and his pants’ crease was so mesmerizingly crisp. And it goes back further than Obama, but I’ll stop there.

Even now, when the country is under assault through the undermining of our national identity, what has the Right done? Simply asked that people stand for the National Anthem. That’s it! But somehow that is an offense that is too prideful, too nationalistic, too patriotic, too populist, “My God, You’re a FASCIST!” Get it? See how that works. Do try to keep up.

Today it feels like this national divide isn’t even really about the anthem, or the flag, or kneeling, or sitting, or fists in the air. It’s not about President Donald Trump, it’s not about Colin Kaepernick, it’s not about the military, or even police brutality.

Exactly. Will someone finally admit that whatever message Kaepernick wanted to send, it has gone off the rails? Someone please admit that. It’s the first step in getting this country back on track. Pride runs both ways, and the ones responsible for the protest need to take responsibility for their contribution to this disaster. Don’t ask people to apologize for loving their country.

It feels like it’s about winning. That’s what makes America so great, our sheer competitiveness. We’re winners, and we won’t quit until victory is ours.

He’s right again, only he doesn’t understand the game the Left is playing. It is a game we cannot lose. Somehow people want to ignore Kaepernick’s own words when he talked about the protest, but let’s refresh our memories:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Commentators complain that the second part of the statement is the more important part—the part about police getting away with murder—but how do you ever get past the first part to get there? Here’s how: You have to admit that America is a racist, oppressive country. So, Full Stop. Hit the brakes. I get that people really believe this. Does he get that other people think this is the greatest country on Earth and there is nothing that will convince them otherwise, not least of all because it actually is the greatest country on Earth? (I didn’t say perfect, just the greatest.) Those are the people Kaepernick needs for his issue to progress. He chose to send a message of hate, disrespect, blame, and shame. The very predictable reaction to that message is rejection. All I ask of him is to not be surprised when that’s what comes back at him.

DEFLECTION IN ABUSE SYNDROME

John Ringo:

Deflection in abuse syndrome: Are Hollywood Actresses really angry at Conservative men?

The simple answer to the question is: Yes. But not because conservative men have abused them. Because they are forced to be silent, for various sociological and psychological reasons, about their abuse at the hands of the ‘in-crowd’ of liberals by which they are surrounded. And they lash out at any convenient target.

Let’s put this in a perspective that might make sense: A high school cheerleading team.

We’ll call the town this takes place in ‘Hollywood’.

When the new freshman girls reach high school they’re SOOO EXCITED! They were cheerleaders in junior high and now they might get on the JV CHEERLEADING TEAM and even be VARSITY CHEERLEADERS! YAY! GO HOLLYWOOD!

So let’s follow the career of a freshman aspiring JV cheerleader named, oh, Ashley.

As part of Ashley’s tryout she’s invited to a HIGH SCHOOL PARTY! (YAY! WE’RE REALLY GROWN UP NOW!) And at that high school party she gets a little drunk and ends up in the morning in a bed full of strangers (various male varsity jocks) wearing nothing but her socks.

She’s embarrassed and shocked and hurt and doesn’t know what to do. Because she’s never had an experience like that before. (Though she’s rarely a virgin.)

Does she call them out? Does she report it? Will it affect her chances of being on the cheerleading team?

At some point she might open up to a Varsity Cheerleader we’ll call, oh, Dame Judy D. And Dame Judy’s rather cold response tends to be: Welcome to the bigs, sister. Now shut up and act.

And so Ashley is now part of the herd. She’s one of the ‘important’ people in high school. And she probably ends up being one of the mean girls who makes life horrible for the nerds. (Herein played by anyone with (R) after their name or anyone who can be defined as ‘conservative’.) And the reason that she makes life horrible for the nerds is THEY ARE THE ONLY SAFE TARGET!

If she lashes out at the jocks and Varsity cheerleaders who are actually making her life hell, the best she can hope is a punch in the face. Worse SHE MIGHT BE THROWN OUT OF THE IN-CROWD! She might NEVER DO LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!

And when it’s her time to be the Varsity Cheerleader and some newbie freshman wimp is crying and sulking she tells her: Welcome to the bigs, sis. Now shut up and act.

And when that cheerleader finds a convenient nerd target (herein played by… oh, choose the R target of choice) she makes his life hell. Because she can. And she has to get the rage out somehow.

It’s all part of abuse syndrome. I’d wondered about it for some time but the ‘revelations’ about Harvey Weinstein just make it crystal clear. People who are subject to long-term abuse MUST find an outlet for the anger that bubbles in them all the time. They don’t, dare not for various reasons, lash out at their abusers. Think of children in abusive homes. How can they lash out at their parents who are abusing them? They are powerless. So they become bullies in turn.

Conservatives are an easy target. OBVIOUSLY they are worse than the ‘good’ and ‘decent’ liberal men who talk about how important feminism is all the time. Then abuse them. Conservatives HAVE to be worse! They HAVE to be! It’s just not getting reported, just as the abuse they are subjected to by the Harvey Weinsteins of the world is not reported. And since the people around them are ‘their’ tribe, they must, for various psychological reasons, be ‘good’ or at least ‘better’ than the enemy tribe.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t conservatives just as shitty as Harvey Weinstein. There probably are. But they are MUCH more likely to be outed by the news media. (Think of Newt Gingrich and divorcing his dying wife or for that matter the Access Hollywood tape. Interesting that name keeps coming up don’t you think?) Do you really think if a Republican senator was charged by a woman with groping her or masturbating into a plant, that the New York Times would kill the story?

In that way the liberal bias in media can be considered a God send to conservatives and Republicans. It polices our ranks. It is a major weakness for the Democrats and liberals because it refuses to do so. Thus you get the Harvey Weinsteins, the Weiners, the Spitzers who are all ‘protected’ classes until they can’t be protected anymore.

So do liberal actresses and models and all the rest really think conservative men are the worst human beings in the world?

Yes. Yes, they do. Because they have to work every day with some of the ACTUALLY worst human beings in the world. And they have to believe conservative men are worse. Otherwise, there’s no point to being on the ‘good’ side.

Thus when Donald Trump said some needlessly crass things and alleged to have groped women, they immediately saw in him not just Harvey (all the rest of the abusers in Hollywood High not to mention Billy ‘I did not rape that woman’ Clinton) but WORSE THAN HARVEY.

Because Trump has to be worse. They can’t really be slaves to some of the most vile human beings on the face of the planet.

Got news for you ladies: Yes, yes, you are. You enable them every day and by doing so you not only support the abusers, you directly or indirectly tell all the hurt new cheerleaders: Welcome to the bigs, sis. Now shut up and act.

You’re blaming the wrong side. You really do work with, and support, scum.

What does that make you, Miz Streep?

As usual with public: Share, share, share.

Italian public vs. elites on mass immigration

Embrace Hollywood

Why Did it Have to be … Guns?

L. Neil Smith

Over the past 30 years, I’ve been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I’ve thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn’t true. What I’ve chosen, in a world where there’s never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

Make no mistake: all politicians—even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership—hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician—or political philosophy—can be put.

If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash—for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn’t genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody’s permission, he’s a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn’t trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn’t want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he’s sworn to uphold and defend—the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights—do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil—like “Constitutionalist”—when you insist that he account for himself, hasn’t he betrayed his oath, isn’t he unfit to hold office, and doesn’t he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They’re the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician—or political philosophy—is really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn’t have a gun—but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn’t you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school—or the military? Isn’t it an essentially European notion, anyway—Prussian, maybe—and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won’t trust you, why should you trust him? If he’s a man—and you’re not—what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If “he” happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she’s eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn’t want you to have?

On the other hand—or the other party—should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn’t it? You don’t have to study every issue—health care, international trade—all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

And that’s why I’m accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter.

But it isn’t true, is it?

Compare And Contrast: Pro-White High T Trump Vs Anti-White Low T Obama

Chateau Hartiste

2016, the Gay Mulatto’s Columbus Day message:

Obama’s proclamation acknowledged Columbus’ spirit of exploration. But he said the nation should “also acknowledge the pain and suffering reflected in the stories of Native Americans who had long resided on this land prior to the arrival of European newcomers.”

2017, President Trump’s Columbus Day message:

The president’s proclamation Friday directs the U.S. to celebrate his discovery of the Americas, noting “the permanent arrival of Europeans … was a transformative event that undeniably and fundamentally changed the course of human history and set the stage for the development of our great Nation.”

Trump’s proclamation only praises Columbus, Spain and the explorer’s native Italy.

The difference between Trump and Gay Mulatto is like the difference between white and black, testicles and ovaries, a 300 pound bench press and pendulous man titties. You may think this is small potatoes, but symbolism in act and speech matter. Leaders set the tone and can demoralize enemies and uplift supporters. Gay Mulatto’s instinct was to demoralize Whites and uplift anti-Whites. Trump’s instinct is the opposite, and America is better, and more closely aligned with Truth&Beauty, for his sensibility.

Trump understands that he has to change the culture.  And he is; Western Culture is counter-attacking and the Left is reeling.

After the smash

Richard Fernandez

After several ominous rumbles outside the tower the individual creaks have finally merged into a continuous roar. Brexit, the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the crumbling of the Iran deal, America quitting UNESCO, Trump dismantling Obamacare, consular withdrawal from Cuba, the pullout from the Paris accord -- these have piled on so fast they've acquired the character of a single collective event. Now the fall of Hollywood has followed like the inevitable comedic boulder right on Wile E. Coyote's head at the bottom of the gulch. Are we still in Kansas anymore?

It's becoming increasingly hard to believe the world can return to the status quo ante, even if Trump is impeached. It's too far gone. A whole landscape has vanished seemingly overnight going from the post-Cold War to the post-post Cold War; from a post-Modernist culture to post-everything in the blink of an eye. Even the political scene is unrecognizable. The Republican party is in shambles; the Democrats in disarray....

There will be danger -- perhaps immense perils -- associated with this paradigm shift. Yet the danger may have even been greater had the population not risked adapting. For one thing it might have been trapped in the Tower now fallen to dust. What is manifest is the gods have fallen, leaving many institutions rudderless. The Left spent decades replacing traditional myths and social sanctions with their own structures only to see these fall to ruin.

Political shock and awe.

I don't want to live in a world where Harvey Weinstein is God

Mark Steyn is the best wordsmith in America (even if he is Canadian).

Contradictions and Condescension

Not so long ago, picking up a Golden Globe for her turn as Mrs Thatcher, Meryl was happy to salute Harvey Weinstein as God, notwithstanding that the previous occupant of that position was famously antipathetic to the sin of Onan, with or without attendant shrubbery....

Why do Mitt's binders full of women outrage liberal sensibilities but not Harvey's pot plants full of semen?

Well, in the old days, the bourgeoisie expected bourgeois values throughout society. The wealthy and powerful disdained them, but discreetly. Now they disdain them openly. Indeed, they wage war on them, relentlessly. Instead, they enforce "progressive" values. Institutions fundamental to the nation-state, such as citizenship, have to be rendered meaningless - so that what matters in any immigration debate is not the citizens but the invaders, to the point where Nancy Pelosi thanks the parents of "Dreamers" for breaking American law and bringing them here, as a precious gift to a nation crying out for even more low-skilled immigrants. As for institutions that pre-date the nation-state - institutions almost as old as humanity - they're as easy to redefine, so that marriage can no longer be confined to those of opposite sexes. Speaking of the sexes, human biology can be vaporized, so that two sexes become 57 genders, and grade-school boys more interested in Barbie than GI Joe get to be pumped full of puberty blockers and directed to the girls' bathroom. And after all that, religion has to be put on the back foot, so that any recalcitrant mom'n'pop bakery for whom two men atop a wedding cake is an abomination, must be hunted down, dragged into court and financially ruined pour encourager les autres. And in a revolutionary present it is necessary ultimately to throttle the past - eliminating Robert E Lee, Christopher Columbus, Dr Seuss, Stephen Foster, the national anthem, to dam up the stream of history, the flow of past to present to future, and thus sever the citizenry from their entire inheritance, so that we are mere flotsam and jetsam on the frothing surface of the moment - a world where, in a certain sense, Harvey Weinstein is God....

Amid the condescension, there are contradictions. So a century-old statue of someone dead a hundred and fifty years who does not conform to the identity-group pieties of 2017 must be torn down - whereas an actual flesh-and-blood human being who does not conform to the identity-group pieties of 2017 can stagger around Hollywood and New York and London and Rome treating women like garbage.

Read the whole thing.

Harvey Weinstein didn't persist because he failed every single time

From the madgeniusclub:

So it is kind of the same level of shock as the revelation of gambling in Rick’s Casino that I read of Harvey Weinstein harassing actresses for sexual favors. It’s as surprising as Bill Clinton… And the reality is, in an environment where there are 100 (or 10 000) nearly equally qualified eager applicants for a job, and Harvey or Bill or Mary or Sally… have got the power to decide which of you gets that break, and you expect none of the deciders to use that, and none of applicants to use that either? I don’t know where you find such humans, but it isn’t Hollywood. I’m not excusing it, but let’s try and pretend we understand the basics of evolutionary genetic selection: AKA survival of the fittest. Such tactics must have succeeded-on both sides, probably with a substantial number of directors (or people in positions power, be they kings or tribal medicine men or Company directors or presidents) and substantial part of Hollywood’s A-list back when they were no-list or low-list. Let’s be real here, Harvey didn’t keep trying because he failed every single time. But maybe I’m wrong: Who knows, perhaps all those eager pussy-hat wearers who became vastly wealthy, famous and successful due to Weinstein never ever gave him what he wanted, and he just kept right on trying…

Oddly, now, many years later, some of them are complaining. None of them have yet volunteered to give back the tainted money and awards… And some of his award winners aren’t complaining, or at least yet.

Look… take the sex aspect out of it, and many an author is no less of a slut, willing to do whatever necessary to please an editor or publisher, and many an editor, publisher or agent, is not much of a moral step up on Harvey. Let’s not get sanctimonious about it. It’s mercenary, not admirable behavior perhaps, but realistically many an author faced similar choices – and not just authors. The two aspects are that the honorable mercenary (or individual of negotiable virtue) stays bought, and secondly doesn’t pretend they’re the soul of virtue. Looking at Hollywood’s A-list (and their all too public private lives) they seem to make a big deal out of telling the world – or at least those who disagree with them, just how wicked and without virtue others are. Yeah, the bimbo who had sex with something that resembles Baron Harkonnen, to get her success, with the intellect of lard, who has a personal life that resembles a psychological and social train-wreck… preaching morality. Telling the public – for example – that guns are bad, and abortion is essential.

But the scary part is…

Some people listen.

It's not really surprising that Weinstein and people like him exist, and most especially in Hollywood where beautiful people go and who will do anything to get fame and wealth.   What's surprising is that others give them the power to shape our culture, our ideas. These people are eye candy; they are not famous for their virtue or their wisdom ... things that they totally lack.  

ISIS Fighters, Having Pledged to Fight or Die, Surrender en Masse

What a difference Trump makes.  Yet not one word in the NY Times story about the change in military policy from that under Obama, when ISIS grew, to it's defeat under the Trump administration.

Nothing Makes Liberals Angrier Than Us Normals Insisting On Our Rights

I don’t agree with liberals often, because I’m not an idiot and because I love America, but when they once again say, “We must have a conversation about guns!” I still couldn’t agree more. And, since all we’ve heard is you leftists shrieking at us all week, I’ll start it off.

You don’t ever get to disarm us. Not ever.

There. It sure feels good to engage in a constructive dialogue.

Now, we should have this conversation because in recent years we’ve seen a remarkable antipathy for the fact that normal Americans even have rights among those on the left. We should have this conversation to clear the air before leftists push too far and the air gets filled with smoke. But we really don’t need to have a conversation about our rights to keep and bear arms. They’re rights. There’s nothing to talk about.

This goes for all our rights that the left hates, like the rights to speak and write freely, to practice our religion as we see fit, and to not be railroaded by liberal authority without due process. Leftists hate our rights because they hate us, and when we assert our rights it gets in the way of their malicious schemes to dominate and control us. It makes them stamp their little sandaled feet in rage when we normals just won’t cooperate and surrender our rights. But we love our rights – rights are wonderful things with which we were endowed by our Creator, and which our beloved Constitution merely reiterates. But the left, including its pet media, thinks that our rights were merely iterated, and that the left can take an eraser to the parchment and – voila! – no more pesky rights for you flyover people....

I, for one, am not super inclined to give up my ability to defend myself in response to demands by people who eagerly tell me they want me enslaved or dead. Literally dead.

Black Lives Matter Students Shut Down the ACLU's Campus Free Speech Event Because 'Liberalism Is White Supremacy'

Students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement crashed an event at the College of William & Mary, rushed the stage, and prevented the invited guest—the American Civil Liberties Union's Claire Gastañaga, a W&M alum—from speaking.

Ironically, Gastañaga had intended to speak on the subject, "Students and the First Amendment."

The disruption was livestreamed on BLM at W&M's Facebook page. Students took to the stage just a few moments after Gastañaga began her remarks. At first, she attempted to spin the demonstration as a welcome example of the kind of thing she had come to campus to discuss, commenting "Good, I like this," as they lined up and raised their signs. "I'm going to talk to you about knowing your rights, and protests and demonstrations, which this illustrates very well. Then I'm going to respond to questions from the moderators, and then questions from the audience."

It was the last remark she was able to make before protesters drowned her out with cries of, "ACLU, you protect Hitler, too." They also chanted, "the oppressed are not impressed," "shame, shame, shame, shame," (an ode to the Faith Militant's treatment of Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, though why anyone would want to be associated with the religious fanatics in that particular conflict is beyond me), "blood on your hands," "the revolution will not uphold the Constitution," and, uh, "liberalism is white supremacy."

W&M put out a meaningless statement that was the functional equivalent of "Tut, Tut."  There is no free speech at W&M.  But we knew that ahead of time.

Glenn Reynolds comments:

It’s almost like they’re commie agitators, rather than peaceful civil rights supporters. But any students involved in this sort of thing should be suspended or expelled.

Harvard prof calls NRA a 'domestic terrorist organization'

This is what is now considered reasoned debate at Harvard.

Dr. Jonathan Walton also declared that "cultural anxiety, toxic masculinity, and racial, religious, and ethnic bigotries are eating away at the soul of this nation," causing us "to elect a madman to the presidency."

In other news, Harvard is under investigation by the Department of Justice for discriminating against Asians. 

Liberals Only Like State Power When They Wield It

Daily Caller:

Most liberals have come to terms with what they want state power to achieve.

Enforcing immigration law is tyrannical, but rounding up hate thinkers is noble. Police drawing guns on minorities is an outrage, but law enforcement mowing down armed rednecks is something to aspire to. The president criticizing left-wing journalists is a sign of fascism, but shutting down right-wing “fake news” on Facebook is necessary.

The Tragic Incoherence of the NFL Protests

Inordinate Police Brutality Against the African-American Community?

While there certainly have been a large number of well-publicized shootings of African-American suspects, statistics do not bear out, as alleged, a supposed wave of police violence against black unarmed suspects. Is the anger then directed at regrettable though isolated iconic incidents but not at prevailing trends?

White police officers are more than 18 times more likely to be shot by African-Americans than white police officers are to shoot unarmed black suspects. Does anyone care?

In absolute numbers, more white suspects were shot yearly by police than were black suspects. Given respective crime rates and the frequency of relative encounters with police, black suspects were not statistically more likely to be victims of police violence than were whites.

Given the topics of race, crime, and violence, the frequency of black-on-white crime versus white-on-black crime—depending on the particular category—while comparatively rare, is still widely disproportionate, by a factor of 7 to 10.

Roughly 40-50 percent of all reported U.S. arrests for various violent crime involve teen or adult African-American males, who make up about 4-5 percent of the population. Blacks are well over 20 times more likely to be shot and killed by other blacks than by police officers.

The Left often does not pay much attention to such facts—though it grows angry when others do.

Read the whole thing.

Liberals say only people approved by the government should have guns

The Las Vegas gunman who killed nearly 60 people at a country music festival worked as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, an IRS agent and in an auditing department over a 10-year period.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Stephen Paddock’s employment included about two years as a mail carrier from 1976 to 1978.

After that, he worked as an agent for the Internal Revenue Service for six years until 1984. And then he worked a defense auditing job for about 18 months.

The information helped complete the timeline surrounding the 64-year-old Paddock’s life. He graduated from college in 1977 from Cal State Northridge and also worked for a defense contractor in the late 1980s.

Knee Jerks by Intellectual Froglegs

Howie Carr: President instantly sidelines criticism of NFL

The NFL’s run of terrible press is over — when President Trump attacked the league Friday night in Alabama, 99.99 percent of the alt-left media reflexively fell into line in defense of a sport they were denouncing as barbaric as late as Friday afternoon.

You know that torrent of negative news the fellow travelers has been spewing out about pro football — the epidemics of CTE and spousal abuse, the league’s plummeting TV ratings, the half-empty stadiums in California, the $6 tickets going begging, etc., etc.?

Now that Trump has slammed the NFL, it is once again ... America’s Pastime!

The Psychology of Overrated Art

For as long as I can remember, the "My child could do that" critique of modern painting and sculpture has resonated with me. Broadly defined, I hasten to add, modernity creates great new visual art all the time; just look at graphic novels over the last forty years. But to my eyes, high-status painting and sculpture - the kind displayed in the "modern" section of museums - almost always looks like junk. When my little boy loudly declared, "That's not art!" at the modern section of the National Art Gallery, I thought of the Emperor's New Clothes and proudly smiled.

I know that most art aficionados will attribute my philistine position to ignorance. But what's my theory about where they go wrong? I can hardly call them ignorant; they plainly know vastly more about the art they prize than I do. Instead, I blame their aesthetic errors on some well-known psychological biases. Leading the list:

Read the whole thing

Police officer reports from Puerto Rico

Hugh Hefner’s Real Legacy

Let’s not kid ourselves, Hugh Hefner pioneered legal porn.  

That’s his legacy. 

The first issue of Playboy was wildly popular because it featured naughty pictures of Marilyn Monroe who was, at the time, the leading Hollywood sex symbol.  Like most moral corruption it begins with baby steps.  Those pictures of Monroe would not get a second glance today.  Pictures like those can now be found in almost every magazine, usually selling fashion - to women.

The heirs of Hefner have moved on.  Nothing that people have done to themselves or to others in the name of sex can now be found … instantly, in living vibrant color. 

Perhaps it was inevitable.  Perhaps the culture was ready for this in 1953.  Of course, the avant garde could not admit they liked porn.  Instead porn was peddled on constitutional grounds.  You remember learning about the rights of free speech and a free press being vital to a free republic, don't you?  

We were told that if we are prevented from instant access to porn the next thing we know we will have lost our right to speak freely about political issues. In other words, porn was the guardian of the First Amendment.  The watchman on the ramparts of freedom.  This formulation is now axiomatic.  It’s been internalized.  It’s no longer an issue for debate.

Yet, despite the omnipresence of the most graphic porn, there are large areas of this country where political speech is effectively banned.  Where exercising your right to speak freely about – say – support for Conservatism, to admit to being a Republican, and – worse yet – a supporter of Donald Trump will get you a beating.

People are beginning to wonder if porn is really the “canary in the coal mine” that protects my right to speak freely without fear of losing my job, or being investigated by the IRS, or getting ostracized in Academia, or being physically attacked by the AntiFa mob? 

It was all a lie, wasn’t it?  It really was all about wanting to see dirty pictures. 

How’s that turning out for you?

Colin Kaepernick donated $25,000 to group named after convicted cop killer and former Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur who broke out of jail and fled to Cuba

This is the guy who started the NFL on the path to self-destruction.  This is the guy who young Black men look up to as a role model.  It's a problem.

Wind Power?

Some politicians and newspaper editors - illiterates all - propose wind power as a substitute for coal/oil/natural gas/nuclear based electricity.  Here's where reality intrudes.

... physicist Howard Hayden has commented:

“Power from wind varies dramatically with wind speed, as anybody can tell by merely looking at the power curves from any turbine manufacturer on the planet. If the wind speed increases from 10 mph to 20 mph, the power  increases by a cool factor of eight. If the wind speed drops from 20 mph to 10 mph, the power it produces drops by 87.5%. Such variations are at odds with the necessity of keeping the grid voltage constant within a few percent, and the frequency constant within 0.03%. In the electricity business, stability is the key ingredient”

Not experienced in physical issues, some politicians might readily endorse schemes where the instability is hidden; their failure to perceive the fatal limitation of wind power is one such example.

IS SEA LEVEL RISING?

Climate change alarmists portray a catastrophic rise in sea level as one of the chief dangers of global warming. They draw pictures of the Statue of Liberty up to her chest in water, and so on. I doubt whether many people actually believe these dire predictions, however. If they did, prices for oceanfront property would be collapsing. That isn’t happening, which suggests that a lot of people pay lip service to global warming hysteria who don’t actually think it has any scientific basis.

If they don’t believe it, they’re right. Here, as in so many instances, global warming alarmism is built on a skinny foundation of truth. Sea level is indeed rising, as it has been for something like 15,000 years, since the end of the last Ice Age. At one time, sea level rose rapidly, as the giant glaciers that covered most of the Northern Hemisphere melted. For the last 6,000 years, the melting and consequent sea level rise has been relatively constant and modest:

 

At The Week That Was, SEPP comments:

Geophysicist Dennis Hadke compared the claim of drastic sea level rise with what is actually occurring in ten coastal cities with long and reliable records of rise (from tidal gages). He calculates linear fits, regression lines, for each of the ten cities. Not surprisingly for TWTW readers, he finds:

There has been no dramatic and consistent sea-level rise in the past century, and projections show no dramatic rise is likely to occur in the coming century.

There is no correlation between CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and sea-level rise.

The work of Hadke concurs with retired NASA meteorologist Thomas Wysmuller discussed in the January 28 TWTW. Wysmuller explored the correlation between CO2 and sea level rise and found no measurable linkage between Sea Level and CO2. As Wysmuller stated:

For the past 2,000 years, Sea Level rise was unchangingly linear, increasing between 1 & 1.5 mm/yr. The maximum rise is about 6 inches per century. This has continued for the past 135 years, even though CO2 concentrations have increased by 38%.

It must be remembered that in addition to the ocean rising gradually–very gradually–as ice continues to melt, slowly, the Earth also subsides. But subsidence is local, depending on soil conditions in a particular place. Cities that are built partly on landfills, like Miami, are especially likely to sink. When you read in the newspapers about alarming conditions caused by rapidly rising sea levels, it is almost certain that what is mostly happening is that the land is subsiding.

Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet?

Glenn Greenwald begins with the fake news that the Russians hacked 21 state electoral systems ...

So what was wrong with this story? Just one small thing: it was false. The story began to fall apart yesterday when Associated Press reported that Wisconsin – one of the states included in the original report that, for obvious reasons, caused the most excitement – did not, in fact, have its election systems targeted by Russian hackers

and then goes on.

That’s how the Russia narrative is constantly “reported,” and it’s the reason so many of the biggest stories have embarrassingly collapsed. It’s because the Russia story of 2017 – not unlike the Iraq discourse of 2002 – is now driven by religious-like faith rather than rational faculties.

No questioning of official claims is allowed. The evidentiary threshold which an assertion must overcome before being accepted is so low as to be non-existent. And the penalty for desiring to see evidence for official claims, or questioning the validity and persuasiveness of the evidence that is proffered, are accusations that impugn one’s patriotism and loyalty (simply wanting to see evidence for official claims about Russia is proof, in many quarters, that one is a Kremlin agent or at least adores Putin – just as wanting to see evidence in 2002, or questioning the evidence presented for claims about Saddam, was viewed as proof that one harbored sympathy for the Iraqi dictator).

Regardless of your views on Russia, Trump and the rest, nobody can possibly regard this climate as healthy. Just look at how many major, incredibly inflammatory stories, from major media outlets, have collapsed. Is it not clear that there is something very wrong with how we are discussing and reporting on relations between these two nuclear-armed powers?

Read the whole thing.